by gazed at us with bright, bird-like eyes and
smiled quietly when she woke, as though she had inherited her parents'
gentle ways. We believed them when they said that she never cried; we
had already discovered that this was the rule with Russian children of
all classes.

They were much interested to learn from what country we came. I was
prepared to find them unacquainted with the situation of America, after
having been asked by an old soldier in the park, "In what district of
Russia is America?" and after having been told by an _izvostchik_ that
the late Empress had come from my country, since "Germany" meant for him
all the world which was not Russia, just as the adjective "German"
signifies anything foreign and not wholly approved.

"Is America near Berlin?" asked our peasant hosts.

"Farther than that," I replied.

They laughed, and gave up the riddle after a few more equally wild
guesses.

"It is on the other side of the world," I said.

"Then you must be nearer God than we are!" they exclaimed, with a sort
of reverence for people who came from the suburbs of heaven.

"Surely," I said, "you do not think that the earth is flat, and that we
live on the upper side, and you on the lower?"

But that was precisely what they did think, in their modesty, and, as it
seemed a hopeless task to demonstrate to them the sphericity of the
globe, I left them in that flattering delusion.

I asked the old woman to explain her holy pictures to me, as I always
enjoyed the quaint expressions and elucidations of the peasants, and
inquired whether she thought the _ikona_ of the Virgin was the Virgin
herself. I had heard it asserted very often by over-wise foreigners that
this was the idea entertained by all Russians, without regard to class,
and especially by the peasants.

"No," she replied, "but it shows the Virgin Mother to me, just as your
picture would show you to me when you were on the other side of the
world, and remind me of you. Only--how shall I say it?--there is
more power in a wonder-working _ikona_ like this."

She handed me one which depicted the Virgin completely surrounded by a
halo of starlike points shaded in red and yellow flames. It is called
"the Virgin-of-the-Bush-that-burned-but-was-not-consumed," evidently a
reminiscence of Moses. She attached particular value to it because of
the aid rendered on the occasion which had demonstrated its
"wonder-working" (miraculous) powers. It appeared that a dangero