CHAPTER I.
A NEW-COMER.
"YES, indeed," remarked one of the guests at the English table, "yes, indeed, we start life thinking that we shall build a great cathedral, a crowning glory to architecture, and we end by contriving a mud hut!" "I am glad you think so well of human nature," said the Disagreeable Man, suddenly looking up from the newspaper which he always read during meal- time.

"I should be more inclined to say that we end by being content to dig a hole, and get into it, like the earth men." A silence followed these words; the English community at that end of the table was struck with astonishment at hearing the Disagreeable Man speak.
The few sentences he had spoken during the last four years at Petershof were on record; this was decidedly the longest of them all.
"He is going to speak again," whispered beautiful Mrs.Reffold to her neighbour.
The Disagreeable Man once more looked up from his newspaper.
"Please, pass me the Yorkshire relish," he said in his rough way to a girl sitting next to him.
The spell was broken, and the conversation started afresh.

But the girl who had passed the Yorkshire relish sat silent and listless, her food untouched, and her wine untasted.

She was small and thin; her face looked haggard.

She was a new-comer, and had, indeed, arrived at Petershof only two hours before the _table-d'hote_ bell rang.