Ivan lit his lamp and lighted his furnace. His
experiments, however, were a failure. That girl's song kept running in
his head, and the words--how did they go?

"Say when I smoothed thy hair,
Showed I not tender care?
Say when I dressed my child,
Was I not fond and mild?"[1]

[Footnote 1: These lines have been kindly translated
from the original by Miss Troutbeck.]

It was very pretty, and the voice wonderful--so sweet and clear and
melodious. To-morrow evening she might be at the pit's mouth again,
and then he would find out her name. Even if she were not there, the
other girls would know; there were not so many singers among them.

"Say when I smoothed thy hair"--

Oh, he could settle down to nothing with this tiresome song!--

"Showed I not tender care?"

He wished he had seen her face, merely to know if it matched the
voice. Very likely not. She would be hard-featured, like the other
girls--bold, unwomanly creatures; beauty and modesty were rare gifts
in Bondavara.

The next day Ivan was early at the pit. The opening of the air-oven
had done its work; there was only a fractional quantity of hydrogen
mixed with the pit air. The ventilators could be shut, and Ivan was
able to spend some time in the open.

At twelve o'clock the bell rang to leave off work. As the girls came
from the wheelbarrows, he again heard the clear young voice singing
the same song. He had not been wrong as to the voice; it was fresh and
lovely, like the blackbird in the woods, uneducated and unspoiled, but
full of natural charm, tender and joyous as the feathered songster. He
could now see the singer--a very young girl, not more than sixteen.
The common blue bodice she wore showed every undulation of her girlish
figure, untrammelled by any fashionable stays. Her short red skirt,
tucked up on one side, and fastened to her waist, disclosed her still
shorter chemise, which only reached to her knees, so that her legs
were uncovered. They might have been modelled for a statue of Hebe, so
perfect were they in shape--the ankles small, and little feet
beautifully rounded, like a child's. About her head the girl had wound
a colored cloth, and under this she had tucked away her hair; her
face, like those of her companions, was blackened by the coal-dust,
but even this enemy to beauty could not disfigure her. You could see
that her features were regular, her eyebrows thick and dark, her lips
red. There was