ome of us did listen,
too. He gave one of the Bibles to my wife here, and she has been
reading it pretty eagerly ever since."

"What! this, then, is your wife?" I exclaimed.

"Yes, Marika is my wife, and Ivanka is my daughter," replied Petroff,
with a tender glance at the little girl that trotted by his side.

"Perhaps, Marika, your Cornish friend may have taught you to speak
English," said I, in my native tongue, turning to the woman.

Marika shook her pretty head, laughed, and blushed. She seemed to
understand me, but would not consent to reply in English.

"The colporteur of whom you have spoken," said I, turning to the
blacksmith, and again speaking Russian, "did you a great service when he
gave your wife the Word of God."

Dobri Petroff assented, but a frown for a minute overspread his face.
"Yes," he said, "I admit that, but he also taught me to think, and it
might have been better for me--for many of us in this land--if we did
not think; if we could eat and sleep and work like the brutes that
perish."

I feared that I knew too well what the man referred to, and would gladly
have dropped the subject, but could not do so without appearing rude.

"It is always well to think," said I, "when we think rightly, that is,
in accordance with the teachings of the Bible, about which we have just
been speaking. Marika has read much of it to you, no doubt?"

"She has," said the blacksmith, with a touch of sternness, "and among
other things, she has read to me that `oppression driveth even a wise
man mad.' Am I to understand that as merely stating the fact, or
justifying the madness?"

Without waiting for a reply to the question, he went on, hurriedly--

"You saw that Turk to-day, who pushed me aside as if I had been a dog?
That showed you the _spirit_ of the men in power here, but you little
know their practices--"

"Petroff," said I, interrupting, and looking at the man earnestly,
"forgive me if I say that we had better not discuss the subject now. I
have just arrived in your land, and know little about it yet. When I
have seen and heard and thought much, I will be better able to
understand you."

Petroff admitted with ready grace that I was right, and thrusting his
fingers through the wild clustering curls of his black hair, as if to
let the air circle more freely about his head, he turned sharp round,
and pointed to a cottage which stood at a short distance from the
high-road, at the entrance to the v