er. "What is the matter, Vjera? Have
you not been able to pay your rent this year, and has old Homolka
threatened to turn you out?"

"Oh no! It is worse than that, far worse than that! If it were only
myself--" she hesitated.

"What is it? Who is it? Perhaps it is not so serious as you think. Tell me
all about it."

"There is very little time--only an hour. He is going mad--really mad,
Herr Schmidt, because he has given his word of honour to pay Herr
Fischelowitz that money this evening. I only calmed him, by promising to
bring the money at once."

"You promised that?" exclaimed Schmidt. "It was a very wild promise--"

"I will keep it, and you must help me. We have an hour. If we do not
succeed he will never be himself again."

"But fifty marks!" Schmidt could not recover from his astonishment. "Oh,
Vjera!" he exclaimed at last, in the simplicity of his heart, "how you
must love him!"

"I would do more than that--if I could," she answered. "But come, you will
help me, will you not? I have a ten-mark piece and an old thaler put away
at home. That makes thirteen, and two I have in my pocket, fifteen and--I
am afraid that is all," she concluded after a slight hesitation.

"And five are twenty," said the Cossack, producing the six which he had,
and taking one silver piece out of the number to be returned to his
pocket. The children must not starve on the morrow.

"Oh, thank you, Herr Schmidt!" cried poor Vjera in a joyful voice as she
eagerly took the proffered coins. "Twenty already! Why, twenty-five will
be half, will it not? And I am sure that we can find the rest, then."

"There is Dumnoff," said Schmidt. "He probably has something, too."

"But I could not borrow of him--besides, if he knew it was for the
Count--and he is so rough--he would not give it to us."

"We shall see," answered the other, who knew his man. "Wait a moment. He
is still inside."

He re-entered the shop, where Fischelowitz and his wife were conversing
under the gaslight.

"I tell you," Akulina was saying, "that it is high time you got rid of
him. The new workman from Vilna will take his place, and it is positively
ridiculous to be made to submit to this madman's humours, and
impertinence. What sort of a man are you, Christian Gregorovitch, to let
the fellow carry off your Gigerl, with his airy promise to pay you the
money to-day?"

"The Gigerl was broken," observed the tobacconist.

"Oh, it could have been mended; and if it was r