ing of tobacco smoke,
and, pointing to the prisoner, said:

"Take her."

The soldier, a Nijhni peasant with a red and pock-marked face, placed
the paper into the cuff of his coat sleeve, and, smiling, winked to
his muscular comrade. The soldiers and prisoner descended the stairs
and went in the direction of the main entrance.

A small door in the gate opened, and, crossing the threshold, they
passed through the inclosure and took the middle of the paved street.

Drivers, shop-keepers, kitchen maids, laborers and officials halted
and gazed with curiosity at the prisoner. Some shook their heads and
thought: "There is the result of evil conduct--how unlike ours!"
Children looked with horror at the cut-throat, but the presence of the
soldiers reassured them, for she was now powerless to do harm. A
villager, returning from the mart, where he had disposed of his
charcoal and visited an inn, offered her a kopeck. The prisoner
blushed, drooped her head and murmured something.

Conscious of the attention that was shown her, without turning her
head she looked askance at the onlookers and rather enjoyed it. She
also enjoyed the comparatively pure spring air, but the walking on the
cobblestones was painful to her feet, unused as they were to walking,
and shod in clumsy prison shoes. She looked at her feet and endeavored
to step as lightly as possible. Passing by a food store, in front of
which some pigeons were picking grain, she came near striking with her
foot a dove-colored bird. It rose with a flutter of its wings, and
flew past the very ear of the prisoner, fanning her face with its
wings. She smiled, then sighed deeply, remembering her own condition.

CHAPTER II.

The history of the prisoner Maslova was a very common one. Maslova was
the daughter of an unmarried menial who lived with her mother, a
cowherd, on the estate of two spinsters. This unmarried woman gave
birth to a child every year, and, as is the custom in the villages,
baptized them; then neglected the troublesome newcomers, and they
finally starved to death.

Thus five children died. Every one of these was baptized, then it
starved and finally died. The sixth child, begotten of a passing
gypsy, was a girl, who would have shared the same fate, but it
happened that one of the two old maidens entered the cow-shed to
reprimand the milkmaids for carelessness in skimming the cream, and
there saw the mother with the healthy and beautiful child. The old