ones in the towers. We do not all live on the same floor; on the first we dine, on the second we play and amuse ourselves with the other young ladies, and on the third we have our apartments. My parents, who are no longer young, find it fatiguing to be continually going up and down stairs, but there is nothing that I delight in so much, especially while I am without my stays. I take the balustrade and slide down in a minute, and without touching a single stair I am at the bottom.

The number of our visitors is immense, and I think if the Castle of Maleszów were three times as large it would scarcely hold them; it is so lively and full of excitement and noise that our neighbours call it "little Paris." When winter comes we have even more people; then the Captain of our dragoons no longer takes the trouble of letting down the drawbridge, for the arrivals succeed one another from morning to night. The music in the chapel belonging to the Castle never ceases, and we dance as much as we like, it is quite a pleasure to see how merry we are. Summer brings us other enjoyments, we take long walks outside, and have games of all sorts in the great vestibule of the Castle, which is of a prodigious height, the ceiling reaches to the roof, and it is lighted from above and is delightfully cool in the warmest days. I do not think there can be many houses in Poland which surpass ours in magnificence. Our court is composed of courtiers and people belonging to the suite, by which I mean those who are employed in any office at the Castle; the former are held in greater consideration, because theirs is an honorary service, while the others receive salaries, but as they are all gentlemen each one carries a sword. Some of them however are of low extraction, but my father says, that a small proprietor on his own free territory, (and pray bear in mind that this territory is often only a few feet in length,) is the equal of a Palatine. So one ought not to lay too much stress upon their birth; besides, they always augment the suite of the lords and increase the votes for the dietines, and that is a consideration.

The duties of courtiers consist in coming into the apartments of the lord and awaiting his arrival, in always entering his presence in suitable attire and holding themselves in readiness to wait upon him, and in executing any orders that it may please him to give. But supposing the lord should have no commands they must be able to sustain a conversation, and that if possible with wit and intelligence, or be ready to play cards. They must also accompany him in his walks or visits,

defend him in all emergencies, and never fail to give him their votes for the dietines, and moreover they must amuse him and all his belongings when required to do so. Little Macienko acquits himself of this last duty marvellously well, he is in fact a very singular man; they say that formerly every court possessed one of these strange beings, and could not do without them. Macienko is supposed to be stupid and deprived of intelligence, yet he always draws his conclusions with justice and good sense, while his witticisms are unique. He is the most privileged of all the courtiers and he is the only one who may speak the truth without glossing it over. All the court call him the fool, but we call him our little Macienko, he is by no means deserving of the nickname they give him. Besides the courtiers we have also six young ladies belonging to noble families. are under the superintendence of Madame. one is forty and is the height of a child of four years of age, they dress him to look like a Turk; the other is eighteen and has a charming face, and they make him wear the costume of a Cossack. My father often allows him to come upon the table while we are at dinner, and he walks about among the dishes and bottles as if he were in a garden.

They live at the Castle and

Then we have two dwarfs;

for

I think I said that the courtiers have no salaries, they for the most part belong to families of wealth or position, and they acquire while at our court refinement and polish of manner which paves the way them to obtain later either civil or military appointments. The keep of two horses is paid for them, and they are allowed two florins a week for their grooms, they have also a servant who waits exclusively upon them, and this servant is dressed either in plain clothes or in the Cossack costume. Nothing amuses me more than to watch the faces of these servants when they are standing behind their masters during dinner or supper, keeping their eyes fixed on the plates, which is very natural, for they have no separate table, and the only food they have is what it may please their masters to leave for them. Our little Macienko carries on an inexhaustible flow of facetiousness with his man, which sends us into fits of laughter. The paid courtiers are in greater numbers and have not the honour of a seat at our table, excepting the chaplain, the doctor, and the secretary. The butler and the cellarer are always on foot during dinner time to see that we are waited on properly, they also pour out the wine for the Master of the Castle and for the guests, but the courtiers never have any excepting on Sundays

and fête days. The commissioner, the treasurer, the equerry, and the groom of the chambers, whose duty it is to offer his arm to the mistress of the Castle every time she wishes to go out, dine at the steward's table. The courtiers who dine at ours may certainly have much honour, but they have little advantage, for though they are helped from the same dishes they do not eat the same thing. The cook arranges the roast meat in a pyramid on the summit of which he places the poultry and game, underneath he puts beef or even pork, in fact coarser food for the courtiers, to whom they only carry the dishes when we are helped; and they call the end of the table where they sit the grey end. When they first begin to hand the dishes they are so enormous that one thinks it impossible that such cartloads of food can disappear, but they do vanish so rapidly that often there is nothing left for the last one but a spoonful of gravy. They all have prodigious appetites and I never remember seeing anything left from our table on ordinary days when the cook sends up four dishes, nor on fête days when he sends up seven, nor on the days when we have a great deal of company and he sends twelve. The young ladies of the suite dine with us.

The paid courtiers have large salaries, as much as from 300 to 1000 florins a year, but then my father insists upon their being well dressed, especially on the days of reception at the Castle. My father recompenses them liberally when he is pleased with their attendance. If one of them happens to have distinguished himself by great zeal or assiduity he gives him a present on his birthday, either in money or in some garment from his wardrobe. The paid courtiers are under the control of the steward, they are gentlemen and have to serve for three years. When they have been guilty of any fault the steward punishes them by inflicting some strokes with a "martinet." He begins by spreading a carpet on the ground, (for the bare floor is only suitable for the servants who are not of noble birth,) then he chastises the culprit. The steward is very severe, but they say that in order to keep young people in proper subjection it is necessary to have recourse to these means. My father assures us that there is not a room nor a chair in all the Castle of Maleszów where he has not received similar correction, perhaps that is why he is so good.

We have in our service a dozen pages, one of them, Michel Chronowski, will have finished his three years of novitiate at the feast of the Epiphany, and there will be a ceremony on that day. It is the duty pages to be always suitably dressed to accompany us either on foot

of

or horseback when we go out driving, and to be always ready to carry our notes of invitation or our presents when we have any to send, and they have free entrance to our apartments. As to the other servants of the Castle, I should find it difficult to enumerate them, for I do not even know the number of musicians, cooks, cossacks, scullions, and underlings. I only know that five tables are laid for them every day, and that two persons are occupied from morning to night in giving out all the provisions necessary for the kitchen. My mother is often present during the distribution of the provisions for our table, and she keeps in her own possession the keys of the closets where the preserves and groceries are stored. Every day the steward presents to my parents the "menu" of the dinner, which they change or not according to their approval or disapproval.

Our home life is regulated thus. We rise at six o'clock in the summer, and at seven in the winter. My three sisters and I sleep in Madame's room on the third floor, we each have an iron bed with curtains all round. Barbe, as she is the eldest, has two pillows and an eider down quilt, but we have only one pillow and blankets. After dressing quickly we say our prayers in French, and then we have our lessons. Formerly our tutor taught us reading, writing, and arithmetic in Polish, and the Chaplain taught us our catechism; but Barbe and I are now entirely superintended by Madame, and only our younger sisters have their lessons with a tutor. At eight o'clock we go to our parents to wish them good morning and have breakfast. In winter this consists of soup made with beer, and in the summer we drink milk, while on days of abstinence we have excellent panada. After breakfast we all go to mass in the chapel of the Castle. The chapel is very beautiful and has a choir. When the service is finished the Chaplain begins to say prayers aloud in Latin, and we and all the court repeat them after him. Then we go back to our apartments and resume our lessons. We learn German words and phrases, we compose letters and Madame makes us write from dictation the verses of Malesherbes, the French poet. We have a pianoforte, and a German who directs the orchestra of our court gives us lessons, for which he receives 300 florins a year. Barbe is his best pupil and she plays tolerably well.

After our music lessons the hairdresser of the Castle comes to do our hair he always begins with the eldest: when unfortunately there is any new fashion in hair-dressing he is quite sure to make our heads

:

ache. My hair is longer and thicker than my sisters', and when I am seated on the stool before the dressing-table it touches the ground, so the hairdresser tries all his experiments on my poor head. I like the present fashion well enough, it is a very graceful kind of negligé, part of the hair is gathered on to the top of the head, and there formed into curls, while the remainder falls in plaits on the neck and shoulders. The hairdresser always uses half a pound of powder for my hair. Our toilet takes two hours, but in order that this time may not be entirely lost we learn by heart French proverbs, and Madame reads to us out of some book which is both amusing and instructive, just at present it is the Magazine for Children, by Mme. de Beaumont. It is impossible to say how much I delight in those stories of a governess to her pupils.

At twelve o'clock when they ring the Angelus we go down to dinner, which generally lasts two hours, and after that we walk if the weather is fine. On our return we sit down to work; at present we are busy doing a piece of tapestry for the Church of Piotrkowice. When daylight begins to fail candles are lighted, that our work may not be interrupted. We have supper at seven o'clock all the year round, and after supper we never do anything but chat and play cards. It is so amusing to see the faces little Macienko makes when the right card does not come to him, he has the gift of always making me laugh. A page is sent into Warsaw once a week to bring the letters and newspapers, which the Chaplain reads aloud to us, and I give special attention to certain particulars. Often also my father reads us old chronicles, but I must acknowledge that French books amuse me much more. Madame, who does not know a word of Polish, always reads to us in French and so I have become accustomed to it, while my father only reads to us about once a week. But when carnival comes good-bye to the reading, then we shall think of nothing but playing, dancing, and amusement. I suppose that at Warsaw the fêtes are much more splendid than in our Castle. Oh! how I should like to see all the pomp and ceremonial of a great court; but I hear twelve o'clock striking, so I must make haste and say my Angelus, smooth my hair, and go down stairs. I will write to-morrow what I have not had time to say to-day.

2nd January. Yesterday I concerned myself only about family matters, to-day I must think a little about public interests. I should be unworthy of the name of Pole if the affairs of my dear country did not occupy me above everything else. They are much discussed at the