form of a little jest.

Did he understand? He answered with a piece of advice: that I should be
less gay. For the rest, he was in a hurry; he looked at his watch;
announced that all was over, and that I was under arrest; and called for
witnesses to sign the _proces-verbal_. Our gardener ran out to find
somebody. He came back with two people who had been attracted to our
house by the lights and the noise. One was a cabman, the other was Dr.
A----, a neighbour who had recently come to live at X----, and whom we
knew only by sight. These men stared at me with surprise and curiosity.
I scarcely saw them. The words "Under arrest" had completely upset my
Aunt Vera, who, till then so calm, was now crying bitterly, covering me
with kisses, and repeating, "My child! My child!" The old nurse also was
crying, sobbing, and muttering to herself. Just when I feel that I
myself am about to give way, and cry too--that which I am anxious, most
anxious, not to do--she, the old nurse, throws herself at the Colonel's
feet, and begs grace for me, telling him that I am too young, too frail,
to go to prison, that I have been coughing these many days, that I may
die there! This makes the Colonel smile. For me, I tell the old nurse to
get up. I scold her. Stupefied, trembling, she sinks to the floor in a
corner of the room, and weeps for me as the Russian peasants weep for
their dead, mingling with her sobs memories of our common past, praises
of my good qualities, and so forth. All this, uttered in a low
sing-song, is like a sort of funeral dirge.

[Illustration: "THROWS HERSELF AT THE COLONEL'S FEET."]

I hear it still at the moment when the Colonel shuts me into a cab, with
two gendarmes facing me, and another on the box beside the driver, to
whom the order is given, "The fortress!"

Sophie Wassilieff.

(_To be continued._)

PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER MET.

BY SCOTT RANKIN.

BRET HARTE.

"'When a man is interviewed he, consciously or unconsciously, prepares
himself for it and isn't at all natural. Suppose, for instance, you
found your man in a railway car, and entered casually into conversation
with him. Then you would probably get his real thoughts--the man as he
is. But, of course, when a man is asked questions, and sees the answers
taken down in shorthand, it is a very different thing.'"--Bret Harte.

MY SERVANT JOHN.

BY ARCHIBALD FORBES.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY FREDERIC VILLIERS.

Goa is a forlorn and decayed settle