The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Little Russian Servant, by Henri Greville

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Title: The Little Russian Servant

Author: Henri Greville

Release Date: October 30, 2008 [EBook #27103]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE LITTLE RUSSIAN SERVANT.

THE LITTLE RUSSIAN
SERVANT.

BY

HENRI GREVILLE.

_Neely's Booklet Series. No. 24, June 12, 1899. Issued weekly.
$5.00 a year. Entered as second-class matter
at New York Post Office._

[Illustration]

F. TENNYSON NEELY,
PUBLISHER.
LONDON. NEW YORK. CHICAGO.

THE
LITTLE RUSSIAN SERVANT.

"Who's that?" said the countess, stopping in front of a young girl of
fifteen or sixteen, bent over an embroidery frame. The young girl
rose, prostrated herself thrice before her mistress, then, getting up,
remained standing, her hands hanging by her side, her head slightly
bent forward under the investigating gaze of the countess, who through
her eyeglass closely scrutinized her.

"It is the new girl, your highness," answered the head lady's maid,
coming forward with the air of importance that thirty years'
employment gives to no matter what functionary. "She is the daughter
of Foma, of the village of Ikonine. She is come in her turn to pay her
father's _obrok_--he is in Moscow."

"These peasant girls can do nothing," said the countess, with a
wearied air: "what do you expect to get out of this one?"

"She doesn't embroider badly, your highness; pray look yourself. She
can be put to the embroideries--not to the ground, but to the
trimmings. This is for the toilet table of Madame la Comtesse."

The noble lady, who could hardly see, being short-sighted from her
birth, examined the embroidery frame so closely that the tip of her
nose grazed the cloth.

"That's not bad," she said. "Come here, little girl."

The little girl advanced, and the countess inspected her as minutely
as she had don