THE PRISONERS

There was not a sound in the forest save the indistinct, fluttering sound

of the snow falling on the trees. It had been snowing since noon; a

little fine snow, that covered the branches as with frozen moss, and

spread a silvery covering over the dead leaves in the ditches, and

covered the roads with a white, yielding carpet, and made still more

intense the boundless silence of this ocean of trees.

Before the door of the forester's dwelling a young woman, her arms bare

to the elbow, was chopping wood with a hatchet on a block of stone. She

was tall, slender, strong-a true girl of the woods, daughter and wife of

a forester.

A voice called from within the house:

"We are alone to-night, Berthine; you must come in. It is getting dark,

and there may be Prussians or wolves about."

"I've just finished, mother," replied the young woman, splitting as she

spoke an immense log of wood with strong, deft blows, which expanded her

chest each time she raised her arms to strike."Here I am; there's no

need to be afraid; it's quite light still."

Then she gathered up her sticks and logs, piled them in the chimney

corner, went back to close the great oaken shutters, and finally came in,

drawing behind her the heavy bolts of the door.

Her mother, a wrinkled old woman whom age had rendered timid, was

spinning by the fireside.

"I am uneasy," she said,"when your father's not here. Two women are not