lights, that she likened to tears—for she was often sad now—she saw the black eyes and handsome, indifferent face that had taken possession of her soul. As long as she was staying in the grand seignorial mansion where the image of her idol met her at every step in familiar attitude, where she had only to close her eyes to see Serge before her, Mavra was happy; she was of those for whom the innocent and daily presence of the beloved makes the whole happiness of life. Here, where nothing spoke of him, she felt for the first time the pain of separation. Uneasy, she asked herself what it was that was torturing her to this degree, and the truth nearly dawned upon her. But she stopped the thought, not daring to sound it further, saying to herself that there must be at the root of all this suffering some great sin she herself was ignorant of. Morning and evening she knelt long before the sacred images, imploring God to deliver her from her pain; and feeling herself soothed by this effusion of mystic tenderness, she kept her sadness to herself, still refusing to fathom it. But she was visibly wasting away: the smoky atmosphere of her home had now the same painful influence upon her that the want of fresh air had formerly when she first left her village. She passed the winter suffering, uncomplaining, unrelaxing in her work. Gradually she gave up looking at the stars. Not only did they more than ever look like tears, but no sooner did she turn her eyes toward the night sky than they filled with tears, so she hardly knew whether it was the fires of heaven or her own tears sparkling beneath her eyelids.

Spring came, though more tardily than usual; then summer with its field labors. The countess seemed to have forgotten Mavra, who thought with ever more and more resigned sadness of this much-loved mistress.

Her indulgence concerning the service-dues of her family appeared to the young girl not a favor, but a punishment. At hay-making as at harvest young lads seek out the girls. Had Mavra wished it, she might have found ten husbands. She was no longer quite young according to the notion of peasants, who marry their daughters at sixteen and their boys at twenty. She was getting on to twenty, and her mother at times reproached her, treating her as a "useless mouth," although Mavra's embroidery was readily bought by the traders from the large towns, who came to the village twice a year.

In the beginning of September, Serge said to his young wife, who was about to make him a father:

"If you follow my advice, you will yourself nurse our child."

"I should like to do so, but then I must have a trained, devoted servant, one endowed with all the virtues," answered the young wife, "and mamma says this is more difficult to find than a suitable nurse."

"It is quite true," said the countess, present at this family council, which had taken place on an average thrice a week for the last four or five months; "but, Serge, now that I think of it, we have Mavra! the sweetest, quietest, most devoted of nurse-tenders!"

"Mavra! the very thing. How is it we never thought of her before? She is not trained, for she is unmarried, but she is very active and intelligent!"

The manager was written to, ordering him to send on Mavra by the convoy which every year about this period brought to St. Petersburg fruits, preserves, salt, provisions, linen, and, in short, all the products of the earth. The young