the absence of paternal authority, she had the
right of disposing of herself according to her own will. A strong
inducement to alter her condition was presented in the person of a young
clerk in a government office, whose duty sometimes brought him with
papers to the procureur for signature. While Botwinko was engaged with
his breakfast and the perusal of the papers, this clerk was sometimes
kept dangling for hours in the ante-chamber. After a time, these hours
were agreeably spent in the society of Sophie, to whom he eventually
made a proposal of marriage. She consented, but, unwilling to leave her
guardian like a fugitive, she apprised him of her determination, and
humbly requested an account of the property which she had been informed
he had taken charge of at her parents' death.

The procureur-general at first excused himself from giving her an
immediate answer. The next day he presented himself at the police
office, the whole of whose functionaries were under his control. What he
said or did is not known, but the result was that Sophie was taken into
custody by the police, and committed to jail.

Many months elapsed before her fate was known at home. It was stated
that she absconded. The clerk, banished the procureur's house, could not
discover the cause of the girl's disappearance; and as all Russian
criminal proceedings are conducted with great secrecy, he only
ascertained by a mere accident that the girl had been sentenced, by a
superior court, to receive a certain number of lashes by the knout, and
to be sent to Siberia. The crime of which they accused her was that of
attempting to poison her master and mistress.

Alarmed at this information, the young man, without waiting for more
particulars, addressed a petition to the war governor of Vilna--the old
General Korsakof--whose power in that province was almost omnipotent,
and, if not misdirected, was very often beneficial to the inhabitants.
The petitioner requested the general's interference, and an
investigation of the case, assuring him that the girl was innocent, and
that the legal authorities who condemned her had been corrupted.

The general was accustomed to decide every case _en militaire_. He had
received from the police court an unfavorable opinion of the
petitioner's character, which was described as "restless;" and was,
moreover, rather offended at his authority having been appealed to by a
subordinate. He therefore settled the business summarily,