of her fowls, in the long grass of
the dooryard. She abandoned the chickens and hunted up her husband, who
took a peep at us, and then kept us waiting while he donned his best
cassock before escorting us.

It is a very small, very plain church which adjoined Prince Vladimir's
summer palace, long since destroyed, and still preserves its gallery for
women and servants, and a box for the ladies of the household.
Everything about it is nine hundred years old, except the roof and the
upper portion of the walls. The archaic frescoes of angels in the
chancel, which date from the same period, and are the best in Kieff,
were the only objects which the deacon could find to expound, to enhance
the "tea-money" value of his services in putting on his best gown and
unlocking the door, and he performed his duty meekly, but firmly. We did
ours by him, and betook ourselves to the principal church, the Cathedral
of the Assumption, where less is left to the imagination.

There, very few of the frescoes are more than a hundred and sixty years
old, the majority dating back less than sixty years, and being in a
style to suit the rococo gilt carving, and the silver-gilt Imperial Gate
to the altar. In the _papert_, or corridor-vestibule, a monk who was
presiding over a Book of Eternal Remembrance invited us to enter our
subscriptions for general prayers to be said on our behalf, or for
special prayers to be said before the "wonder-working image" of the
Assumption so long as the monastery shall exist.

"We are not _pravoslavny_" (Orthodox Christians), I said. But, instead
of being depressed by this tacit refusal, he brightened up and plied us
with a series of questions, until he really seemed to take a temporary
interest in life, in place of his permanent official interest in death
alone, or chiefly.

Service was in progress, in accordance with the canons of the Studieff
monastery, adopted by St. Fedosy in the eleventh century. The singers,
placed in an unusual position, in the centre of the church, were as
remarkable for their hair as for their voices and execution. The
russet-brown and golden locks of some of them fell in heavy waves to
their waists. In fact, long, waving hair seemed to be a specialty with
the monks of this monastery, and they wore it in braids when off duty. I
had seen priests in St. Petersburg who so utterly beyond a doubt frizzed
their scanty hair on days of grand festivals, that the three tufts
pertaining to the thre