"He is only a Russian!" replied the doctor, contemptuously; "there is no need for any great hurry about him!"
"A Russian!" cried the astonished burgomaster.
"A Russian!" repeated Ella, horrified, as all the cruel scenes of which she had been told, in which the Russians had played so prominent a part, passed before her mind.
"Yes, a Russian!" said the doctor, coldly; "and now, my little lady, I am sure you will renounce your design of having this man removed to your grandfather's house. Besides, we can scarcely hope that his eyes will ever again open; and if he can be helped," he continued, half angrily, "it can be done as well here as elsewhere."
Ella again placed herself beside the wounded man; all her fear had vanished; one look upon the pale young face had told her that all the Russians could not be so bad as they had been represented.
"But how can this one ever do us any harm?" she cried, again renewing her entreaties to her grandfather.
The old gentleman was at first very averse to granting her request, but all the arguments which he drew from the almost universal prejudices then existing against the young man's nation proved fruitless. Ella begged and prayed, until he finally yielded. An arrangement was made by which the wounded man was to be carefully borne to the burgomaster's upon a litter, which the doctor promised himself to accompany. Ella and her grandfather hastened home to prepare all for his reception.
The child proposed to give up her own little room to the stranger, because, as she said, her flowers would please him, and he would be less disturbed by the noise from the street.
"But where will you sleep yourself during so long a time?" asked Ella's mother, who was evidently well pleased with her little girl's activity, as she ordered her bed to be exchanged for another, hastily put away her playthings, shut her books up in a closet, and, although everything looked very orderly, still found something new to arrange.