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 ask a favour of you.” But she began to speak as she did with us. “By what law,” she repeated continually, and soon he perceived how proudly she expressed herself, and with what arrogant words.

The colonel listened to her, and then answered calmly: “I cannot, I can do nothing to alter the law; what you desire is not allowed.”

I looked at the girl; she turned red, and her eyes, one might say, were like burning coals. “Law?” she shouted, and she laughed sarcastically as usual, and both angrily and loudly.

“It is true,” answered the colonel, “there is such a law.”

I must confess here I forgot myself, and said: “It is true, your highness, that there is such a law, only this young person, your highness, is ill.”

He looked at me sternly. “What is your name?” he asked. “And if you, miss, are ill,” said the colonel, “then perhaps you will kindly go into the prison hospital?”