ouse, and a fire was kindled on every side. It
blazed up fiercely. It crackled, and hissed, and roared. There was a
strong wind: the cries of the inmates were overcome. Soon the smoke
stifled them; and Gavrillo, when he returned with the troops many days
afterwards, found nothing but a heap of ashes where his house had been.
The mujicks then burnt down the house of their lord and emptied his
granaries, and then dispersed in every direction. Not an inhabitant was
left in the place. Even the old men and the women and children were
carried off. Some of the latter, alas! Were soon captured and cruelly
treated, but many of the men escaped to the distant steppe, and there,
banding themselves together, robbed and plundered all they could venture
to attack. That is the reason that Gavrillo is so melancholy and
morose,' said the girl.

"`Enough to make him so,' answered Minetta. `But has he not married
again? Who takes care of his house?'

"`Oh, no, he has taken no second wife. I should pity the woman to whom
should fall such a fate. He has a blind and deaf old woman who takes
care of his house, and I suppose he thinks if his house was again burnt
there would be no great loss if she was burnt too. She is as sweet
tempered as he is. A pretty life poor Aneouta will have with her.'

"`And Gavrillo himself, where is he?' asked Minetta.

"`Oh, he is away from home just now--gone to see after the sale of some
timber; and the Barin is away on his road to Moscow, and won't be back
till after the grand doings at the coronation of the Czar, and that
makes us all so merry, you know.'

"Minetta had now heard all she required--so had I. The Barin's absence
would enable me the better to carry off Aneouta; at the same time I
fancied that he might make out a good story to the Emperor, and persuade
him to disallow my petition when he found that I was interfering with
one whom he claimed as his serf. The Zingari chief, however, who knows
the world well, afterwards told me that I need have no fears on that
score, and that if the Czar grants my petition no one is likely to
interfere with me. Well, Minetta and I left the field highly satisfied
with the information we had obtained, and betook ourselves to Gavrillo's
house. The old woman, his housekeeper, sat in the porch knitting. The
girl we had spoken with had in no way done her injustice; a more
unattractive female was never seen. I groaned as I thought that my poor
Aneou