e the embroidery.

"How pretty she is! What's your name?"

"Mavra."

The word came like a breath from the rosy lips.

"You must speak louder if you want us to hear you," said the head
lady's maid angrily.

Mavra turned her large, blue, startled eyes toward her, let them drop,
and said nothing.

"Sit down to your work," said the countess, amused at her new toy.
With a quick, graceful movement, the young girl resumed her seat on
the wooden chair, and the needle, firmly held between her agile
fingers, went in and out of the stuff with that short, sharp noise
that stimulates the action of the hand.

"That's right, you may go on," said the countess, her nerves irritated
by the regularity of the movement.

Then, turning her back upon the young girl and trailing the heavy,
sumptuous folds of her dressing-gown along the carefully-washed
pine-wood floor, she disappeared through the door, which was
respectfully closed after her by the head lady's maid. The countess,
an accomplished house-mistress, made a practice of paying a daily
visit to this room, which was reserved for the women of her service.
Mavra was left alone in the workroom, a large, well-lighted chamber,
furnished simply with tables and chairs for the use of the
innumerable women and girls invariably attached to the service of
those noble ladies who knew so well how to maintain their rank in that
blessed time of serfdom. At this hour the workroom was empty. Some of
the women were washing, others ironing, some cleaning and turning
upside down everything in the private apartment the countess had just
left. The young peasant girl, with her needle uplifted, rested her
ruddy hand upon the edge of the frame and looked around her.

What multitudes of embroidered gowns with their rich lace trimmings
hung there on the wall, waiting some slight repairs!--what endless
petticoats with their ornamented flounces all freshly ironed on cords
along the huge room!--what countless lace caps, worn hardly an hour,
pinned to a pincushion as large as a pillow, used only for this
purpose! and there, in a basket on the corner of the table, what piles
of cambric chemises, delicately piped and pleated, trimmed with
Valenciennes lace and ornamented with bright ribbons! And all this
for one person! without counting the silk stockings in that other
basket, and the rings by dozens worn by the countess on her thin
fingers. In this world of living beings under God's heaven, what
importan