he floor to make the wide veranda over the lagoon.

Mrs. Lermontoff had on the peignoir of the natives, and was
barefooted within the house, but wore sandals outside. She sat before
a sewing-machine.

"I am making a gown or two for a neighbor who is sick," she said. "I
do not give many hours to sewing. I like better the piano."

She knew all the Russian composers well, had studied at a conservatory
in the German capital, and she also played Grieg for me with much
feeling and a strong, yet delicate, touch. For dinner we had a broiled
fish, which I myself cooked on stones outside the house, and tuparo,
mountain feis steamed and mashed into a golden pulp, with cocoanut
cream. With these we ate boiled green papaya, which tasted like
vegetable marrow; and for dessert sweet oranges with grated fresh
cocoanut, and for drink, the wine of the nut.

After the food we sat and looked at the reef, the purple sea, and the
stars, and talked. These two were weary of life in the big countries
of the world, and would rest in Tahiti. If they made enough money,
they would like to go to America and work for the revolution they
hoped for. They did not believe in bringing it about by violence,
but by acting on the Christ principle, as they interpreted it. Yet
they were not religionists.

"Of course one is not sure of the aims and end of life," said
Lermontoff. "I have no greater certainty than the kaisers and czars
or your great men, Morgan and Rockefeller; but, at least, theirs are
not worth while for the race of man. I hold that man is the greatest
product of life so far, and not government or trade. That the whirling
spheres are made for man I disbelieve, but on this planet, and in
our ken, he is the object we most prize, and rightfully. Therefore to
build him in health and character, in talent and happiness, is all of
existence. The life after death we are not sure of, but beauty is on
earth, and to know it and worship it in nature, and in man and his
thoughts and deeds are our ends. The individual man gains only by
sacrifice for his fellows. He must give freely all he has. This is
his only way out of the shadow that may be inherent in our growth,
but in any event has been made certain by machinery and business
control of world ethics."

They were believers in the doctrines of Leo Tolstoi, and especially in
non-resistance, and the possessing little or no property to encumber
their free souls. In the village they had become the guid