This week's rest and change did Jack a great deal of good, for he had been feeling the effects of the long strain of excitement.

He had had several slight touches of fever, and the naval doctor had begun to speak of the probability of sending him down to the hospital-ship at Constantinople.

The week's rest, however, completely set him up, and he was delighted with the receipt of a budget of letters from home, written upon the receipt of his letter announcing his safety.
None but those who have gone through a long and tedious campaign, or who may be living a struggling life in some young colony, can know how great is the delight afforded by letters from home.

For a time the readers forget their surroundings, and all the toil and struggle of their existence, and are again in thought among the dear ones at home.
Retiring to some quiet place apart from their comrades, they read through their letters again and again, and it is not till every little item is got by heart, that the letters are folded up and put away, to be re-read over and over again until the next batch arrive.
Jack, of course, had heard much of his family from his brother, but the long letters of his father and mother, the large, scrawling handwriting of his little brothers and sisters, brought them before him far more vividly than any account could have done.

Enclosed in his father's letter was one with a Russian postmark, and this Jack found was from Count Preskoff.