"There is nothing that I want. I have plenty of everything, thank God!" she said, with deep feeling, but only by a considerable effort. "May God grant to all their health! But there is one thing, Barin, you might ask your mother. The peasants here are very poor. If she would only diminish their obligations a little. They have not enough land. As to wood and such-like things, they have none at all. They would pray to God on your behalf. But I need nothing. I have all that I want."

I took leave of Loukeria, after promising that I would see her request fulfilled. Just as I reached the door she called me back.

"Do you remember, Barin," she said, -- a singular expression touching her eyes and lips -- "do you remember what long hair I used to have, right down to my knees? It was a long time before I could make up my mind about it. But how could I keep it in proper order, in the state I am in? So, at last, I had it cut short. Yes -- Well, good-bye, Barin. I cannot talk any more."

That same day, before going out shooting, I had a talk about Loukeria with the head of the hamlet. From him I learned that she bore the name among the villagers of "The Living Mummy," and that she never gave the least trouble to any one: neither murmur nor complaint was ever heard from her lips.

"She never asks for anything, but, on the other hand, she is grateful for everything. Very quiet-like, to be sure, -- very quiet-like. God has smitten her," -- it was thus he concluded -- "for her sins, no doubt. But we won't go into that. And as to condemning her, forsooth. No, no; we won't condemn her. Let her go free!"

A few weeks later, I heard that Loukeria was dead. Death had come for her in truth, and that, too, "after the St. Peter's Fast." They say that on the day of her death, she heard a constant ringing of church bells, though Alexievka is reckoned to be more than five versts from a church, and it was not a Sunday or Saint's day. Besides, Loukeria affirmed that the sound came, not from the church, but from "on high." She probably had not ventured to say that it came "from heaven."

[*] Master, Seigneur, or Sir. [*] The Khorovod is the circling dance, accompanied by song, -- the French ronde. [*] Diminutive of Loukeria. [*] The Russian crescent-shaped head-dress.

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