girl once more packed her clothes up in her little basket, and took her seat on one of the long file of heavy wagons that slowly rolled along the roads for eight or nine days, sleeping at night under the linen awning drawn over the chests of preserves, while the horses were in the stables, and the wagoners by their sides. Sometimes on awaking she saw the stars, but they no longer brought tears to her eyes.

When the convoy of provisions arrived, and Mavra, still dizzy, had made the necessary change in her dress, she was led into the room of the young countess, where the whole family was assembled, augmented within the last two days by a superb newborn baby, which none of the servants knew how to manage.

"Here you are, Mavra. Good-morning!" said the triumphant father, taking up his son in his awkward arms, at the risk of making him roar still louder. "You have a light hand and a gentle voice. I give you my son to take care of."

"I humbly thank you," said the young girl, pale with joy. "I shall do my best."

She carried the infant into an adjoining room, where she soon learned the special care to be given to a child of noble race, which was as different from its cradle from that of little peasants, his brothers in God's sight, as he would be the rest of his life. Toward evening the young mother, surprised at no longer hearing the music her first-born had already had time to accustom her to, sent Serge out to find the reason of this unusual silence. The young master entered the large dark room where Mavra was slowly pacing up and down, the child's cheek pressed against hers, warming it with her warm breath and the love of a heart henceforth happy.

She was singing a peasant lullaby in a low voice, inventing words to the tune. "Dear child of my master, sleep on your servant's heart, that loves you; treasure more precious than all things, my joy, my share of happiness in this world—my little star——"

Serge returned on tiptoe to his wife.

"I think our minds may be quite at ease," said he.

Mavra is now old. She declares that she has always been perfectly happy.

THE END.

NEELY'S
BOOKLET LIBRARY.

The following Titles now ready or in Preparation:

1. The Drums of the Fore and Aft. Rudyard Kipling.
2. The Sins of a Widow. Confessed by Amelie L'Oiseau.
3. Twos and Threes. Anna Olcott Commeline.
4. Santiago de Cuba before the War. Caroline L. Wallace.
5. The Barbarian. Bedloe Mendum.
6. Wrecks and Wreckers. S. P. Jermain.
7. Master and Man. Count Leo Tolstoi.
8. The Greatest Thing in the World. Henry Drummond.
9. Black Jack. Rudyard Kipling.
10. An Idyll of London. Beatrice Harraden.
11. The House of a Traitor. Prosper Mérimée.
12. My Sister Kate. By the Author of Dora Thorne.
13. The Fatal Marriage. Charlotte M. Braeme.
14. The Nest of Nobles. Turgeneiff.
15. A Lodging in the Night. Robert Louis Stevenson.
16. A Case of Identity. A. Conan Doyle.
17. Nurse Eva. The Duchess.
18. A Scandal in Bohemia. A. Conan Doyle.
19. The Man from Archangel. A. Conan Doyle.
20. The Captain of the Pole Star. A. Conan Doyle.
21. John Barrington Cowles. A. Conan Doyle.
22. Love's Ransom Shot. Wilkie Collins.
23. Love Finds the Way. Walter Besant and Jas. Rice.
24. The Little Russian Servant. Henri Greville.