by sending the
young petitioner to the military service for life, in virtue of the
vagrant act.

Still the young man's petition produced a good effect: the poor girl was
not flogged, lest that might have provoked some disturbance in the town.
She was merely dressed in convict's apparel, and sent off to Siberia.

The transport of Russian convicts costs the government but very little.
They go on foot, sleep in _etapes_ or barracks, and the daily allowance
for their subsistence amounts only to five kopecks--equal to a halfpenny
in English money. This they, as well as the poor old soldiers who escort
them, have to eke out by charity. For that purpose, the most attractive
person among each party of exiles is delegated--box in hand, but with an
armed soldier behind--to beg alms of the benevolent; and Sophie was
appointed to be the suppliant for the rest of her wretched companions.

The road from Vilna to Siberia passes through Vitebsk. The convicts had
not been long in the town before Sophie encountered Madame Strognof, who
recognized the girl from her very great likeness to her mother, who had
died in that lady's house. When she learned that Sophie had been living
with the Botwinkos, she had no longer a doubt.

The girl asserted her innocence of the pretended crime for which she was
on her way to Siberia, with tearful energy, and the good Madame S.
believed her; but her husband, who was at that time the Vice-Governor of
Vitebsk, to disabuse his wife's romantic dreams, as he called them, sent
for the officer escorting the prisoners, and showed her the list of
prisoners, which contained a full record, not only of the crime imputed
to the orphan girl, but also of the punishment to which she had been
condemned.

In the face of an official document which appeared to be regular, and
which detailed the girl's presumed offense with circumstantial
consistency, Madame Strognof began to waver in her belief of Sophie's
protestations; but the unfortunate girl asserted her innocence so
strongly and incessantly, that the vice-governor himself was at length
induced to look into the facts. The first suspicion that entered his
mind was derived from the circumstance of the document stating that the
culprit had been punished with the knout, while it was evident from her
appearance, that that dreadful torture had not been inflicted. He caused
a medical man to examine her, who testified that not a scar appeared;
yet the knout always leaves