accept until several days
afterward.

The supper which followed resembled the dinner, except that there were
fewer dishes and more bottles. When the closing course of sweetmeats had
either been consumed or transferred to the pockets of the guests, the
Princess Martha retired with the ladies. The guests of lower rank
followed; and there remained only some fifteen or twenty, who were
thereupon conducted by Prince Alexis to a smaller chamber, where he
pulled off his coat, lit his pipe, and called for brandy. The others
followed his example, and their revelry wore out the night.

Such was the festival which preceded the departure of Prince Boris for
St Petersburg.

IV.

Before following the young Prince and his fortunes in the capital, we
must relate two incidents which somewhat disturbed the ordered course of
life in the castle of Kinesma, during the first month or two after his
departure.

It must be stated, as one favorable trait in the character of Prince
Alexis, that, however brutally he treated his serfs, he allowed no other
man to oppress them. All they had and were--their services, bodies,
lives--belonged to him; hence injustice towards them was disrespect
towards their lord. Under the fear which his barbarity inspired lurked a
brute-like attachment, kept alive by the recognition of this quality.

One day it was reported to him that Gregor, a merchant in the bazaar at
Kinesma, had cheated the wife of one of his serfs in the purchase of a
piece of cloth. Mounting his horse, he rode at once to Gregor's booth,
called for the cloth, and sent the entire piece to the woman, in the
merchant's name, as a confessed act of reparation.

"Now, Gregor, my child," said he, as he turned his horse's head, "have a
care in future, and play me no more dishonest tricks. Do you hear? I
shall come and take your business in hand myself, if the like happens
again."

Not ten days passed before the like--or something fully as bad--_did_
happen. Gregor must have been a newcomer in Kinesma, or he would not
have tried the experiment. In an hour from the time it was announced,
Prince Alexis appeared in the bazaar with a short whip under his arm.

He dismounted at the booth with an ironical smile on his face, which
chilled the very marrow in the merchant's bones.

"Ah, Gregor, my child," he shouted, "you have already forgotten my
commands. Holy St. Nicholas, what a bad memory the boy has! Why, he
can't be trusted to do business: I