up a lie, with front of brass, “I met to-day with a genteel young man, who seemed to be well acquainted with this part of the country, well-informed and sociable, lively and polite. Could this have been the neighbour whom you mean?
I chuckled like a child at having hit upon such a happy idea; for it was impossible for either of them to discover, from this question, what I was driving at.
“No,” replied Mimili, with a smile; “that must have been a stranger. Neighbour * * * * is a man of sixty: father and he were boys together, and his wife was the bosom-friend of my late mother. It is a pity that they happen to be from home. They are people that you ought to see: indeed they are too good for this world.”
This explanation removed from my heart the intolerable weight by which it had been oppressed. I could once more breathe freely, and now I truly enjoyed the generous Ryf. Mimili placed herself opposite to me, and her father took his seat by my side. We chatted about the campaign, and I had to tell them about our loyal nation—how it boldly and unanimously rose to shake off a foreign yoke; how gallantly our unfledged youths combated the bearded and whiskered guards of our enemy; how our landwehr, though never in action before, stood like rocks amid the fire of the artillery; how our troops, frequently without firing a gun, advanced
