en of average ability are, in nearly all
circumstances, better than one, especially if one of them is decidedly
and admittedly superior to the other. Lancey's powers were limited, but
his ambition was not so, and I am bound to add that his application was
beyond all praise. Of course his attainments, like his powers, were not
great. His chief difficulty lay in his tendency to drop the letter _h_
from its rightful position in words, and to insert it, along with _r_
and _k_, in wrong places. But my efforts to impress Lancey's mind had
the satisfactory effect of imbedding minute points of the language
deeply in my own memory.

The village to which I have referred was in Bulgaria--on the right or
southern shore of the Danube. It was a pretty spot, and the bright
sunny weather lent additional charms to water, rock, and tree, while the
twittering of birds, to say nothing of the laughter and song of men,
women, and children working in the fields, or engaged in boisterous
play, added life to it.

Towards the afternoon I landed, and, accompanied by Lancey, went up to
the chief store or shop of the village. It was a primitive store, in
which the most varied and incongruous articles were associated.

The owner of the shop was engaged in bargaining with, I think, one of
the finest specimens of manhood I ever saw. His name I accidentally
learned on entering, for the shopman, at that moment, said--

"No, Dobri Petroff, I cannot let you have it for less."

The shopman spoke in the Bulgarian tongue, which, being a kindred
dialect of the Russian language, I understood easily.

"Too dear," said Petroff, as he turned over the article, a piece of
calico, with a good-humoured affectation of contempt.

Dobri Petroff was a young man, apparently not more than twenty-five,
tall, broad, deep-chested, small-waisted--a perfect study for an Apollo.
Both dress and language betokened him an uneducated man of the
Bulgarian peasantry, and his colour seemed to indicate something of
gipsy origin; but there was an easy frank deportment about him, and a
pleasant smile on his masculine countenance, which told of a naturally
free, if not free-and-easy, spirit. Although born in a land where
tyranny prevailed, where noble spirits were crushed, independence
destroyed, and the people generally debased, there was an occasional
glance in the black eye of Dobri Petroff which told of superior
intelligence, a certain air of natural refinement, and a st