The tribune. [volume] (Beaufort, S.C.) 1874-1876, 1875-04-28
THE IDOL OF HER HEART.

A light at last !" exclaimed, fervent-
~, the young American who accompa-
med Russian ambassador i'm this his
tinrd stage from Urnlsk, in the route of
n long Journey southwark. Heaven
pc praised, we are nearing a human
babjtation !"
Through the driving sleet his keen
eye had discovered the twinkline of q
.Aamp-light. They had crossed thirty
miles Of wintry desert without encoun-
tering n sign of life. The good news
failed, however, to arouse his semi
dormant companion. The younger man
turned toward him glance of compass
sion. Thrown from the sledge some
miles back on that days journey, the
poor ambassador had sustained en-. injury
so painful that only for the last hour,
and under the influence of opiates, he
iifad ceased from moaning.
The isolated dwelling which the
travellers approached, and where the
sledges conveying their luggage had
arrived, proved to be the house of a
hussian peasant. No sooner h,d they.
passed Its wInd-guarded passages, care
1ully lined with felt, and entered from
the intense cold of the out door air into
the no less intense heat of the stove
warmed interior, than the ambassador
fairted.
The energies of the American were
devoted IL mediately to the care of his
trend; He had already ordered his
servant to bring tho medicine chest
from the sledge, and he speedily select
ed and applied, with expressions of ten
DER solIcltude, the proper stimulants, To-
tions, and bandages. He had the salts
factlon to see the ambassador slowly re-
vlve, and to convince himself that the
injury was nothing more serious than a
spraincd ankle, which delay in afford
ing remedy, and untoward exposure
had rendered painful. 4
Not only handsome youth, Rall;
straight, broad-shouldered, and sunnily
blonde, was the young American, Hart
ley. Berne, but dashing, spirited,
merry,voiced m individual, who, as quick
~ as he found his patient recovering,
broke forth into pleasant sallies, which
had the effect to make the ambassadors
face relax from its Greary askew, and
TO draw his big features into an approach
to a laugh.
doctorlng was finished. Tea had been
stepped in the great Russian tea-urn,
and had been swallowed in prodigious
quantities, The ambassador, mutterine
many but not various adiectives of de-
probation, had been hoisted upon the
bed of state-the sole family bed, be it
whispered the fur-spread roof
of the huge stove, where gradually his
.groans, in the soothing spell of skill
fully concocted draught, subsided into
satisfied grunts. Then Hartley Berne had
leisure to study critically his surround
ings.
He was not long in ncomprehending the
contents of the cramped chamber, nearly
one-fourth of whose space was occupied
by the mud-furnace, whose fattened
dome was now peacefully graced by his
comrade. A table of rude deal, occupy
ing the center, supported his own con
templative elbows. A bench, rough like
the table, surrounded the room. On the
dngy wall, between two double-elazed
windows, hung gilded picture of Saint
Nicholas. In one corner pitcher of
water, sacred to scanty ablution, was
suspended from the ceiling, and a shelf
opposite upheld crude black stone. re.
sembling miscarved Otaheitan idol.
On the bench under the gilded saint
were seated the women who had watched
the strangers medicinal performance
with such admiring fascination. They