Note 3 — Front matter

This nobleman (Rukiewicz) had two beautiful sisters, Cornelia and Theresa, whose heroic behavior deserves to be recorded. He was secretary of the Patriotic Club in Lithuania, and kept the records and papers of the society in the village where he lived, near Bialystok; and in order to do this business without disturbance, he had prepared a little summer-house in the garden near his mansion. He happened to be from home when arrested, and immediately after his arrest, the police sent a Russian officer with gens d'armes to his village, in order to take possession of his papers. His sisters, who were ignorant of the event, were quietly at home when they beheld the officer with his suite riding into the court-yard. A presaging fear of the truth seized them, but gave place immediately to an heroic resolution. The younger remained in the room in order to receive and detain these agents of tyranny, whilst the elder, Cornelia, carried in haste some combustibles to the summer-house, which was soon on fire, and more than two hundred persons, whose names were contained in the register, were thus saved by the presence of mind of that heroic lady. She returned to the parlor with the noblest and most delighted mien, and, on the officer's enquiring as to the cause of the fire, she answered with a smile, 'Gentlemen, I only wanted to save you the trouble of some farther brutalities. I have burnt the papers and documents of my brother. You may be sure not to find anything left; and now I am your prisoner. Drag me along with you, to increase the number of your victims.' Both the ladies were carried to prison, and treated in the most unworthy manner during three years. When these noble sisters were dismissed from prison, they found themselves bereft of every consolation. They had no parents left. Their only brother, who had been both parent and brother to them, was now gone. They could not endure the thought of leaving him to pine away so far from them in chains, and they resolved to partake and thus to relieve his sufferings. Regardless of the remonstrances of their friends, they left everything, and, travelling in the humblest manner, mostly on foot or upon the wagons of the peasantry, they undertook the journey to Siberia. It is not known whether Providence granted them to reach their beloved brother or not.