are charged with too often sweating their employés. The carelessness and dishonesty on the part of the hired laborer which naturally follow such a course are so serious that the railways owned by the government are gradually replacing artel labor with labor got in the usual way.

I have not gone into the details of the management of the great and old artels, but they are as complete as centuries of experience would naturally render them. The system deals justly with the artelshiks and the public; it provides that no artel can break up while it has a contract in hand, that no member can sell his place, that any one may resign and be immediately paid his share of the common capital, that a member may be expelled, that if he dies his fellows shall arrange and pay for his funeral and deduct the cost from his share, turning the rest over to his heirs-and so on and so forth, throughout a comprehensive scheme, which includes fines, a division of the funds into reserve capital, security capital, and working capital, and which arranges for the care of the sick, the aged, and the widowed.

Whoever has even a superficial knowledge of the condition of the muzhik knows that in the readjustment of his relations to the state under Alexander II. the amount of land allotted to the peasant was not proportioned to the larger population that has now come to the country. The restless, migratory character of the peasant is therefore increased by necessity, and in a general way it has come about that only the adults, who are necessary to work their land, and who can live on its proceeds, permanently remain in the villages. The others go off to the great cities to be nurses, cab-drivers, artelshiks, and individual laborers, or else move in considerable bodies over the face of the country, seeking work upon the large farm-estates, or in those agricultural districts which are not well supplied with their own labor. Thus, especially in the harvest season, the peasant finds chances to bring home a little money to meet the exactions of the tax-collector, the needs of the family, and the payments needed to keep up easy relations with the village merchant, whose

bill for vodka is often the heaviest tax the improvident muzhik has to pay for his variety of existence. The scattering of the farm-laborers in search of work is the chief and most curious movement of these people. They migrate in vast numbers, and not always with either plan or reason, travelling hundreds of miles from their homes to seek a doubtful chance, when an assurance of work may be had at a tenth of the distance in another direction. The migration occurs in early spring, and the return journeys are made in late autumn. Since the fares on the railways have been made the cheapest in Europe, and especially since a fourthclass fare has been established, almost especially for these roving laborers, the railway statistics show in actual figures a large fraction of the mass that moves to and fro to gain from the land of others that which they have not land enough of their own to get.

And here comes the artel again to play its part, though of late agricultural artels, except for the mere harvesting of heavy crops, are rapidly vanishing before the methods that obtain in other countries. But the farm artels do yet exist in great numbers, and the harvest artels are likely to increase as new ground is broken. Being accustomed to the selection of a starosta, or elder, in each village, and to the partial sharing of responsibility and the yielding of full obedience at home, the wanderers form their artels simply and easily on the village model, and work under its rules without friction. It is towards the end of winter that those peasants who can be spared from one or more villages meet and elect their elder, who goes to the locality where work has been had before, or where it is rumor ed to be obtainable, and makes a contract to deliver the labor of the artel. The entrance fees of the artelshiks suffice to buy the few and simple tools they need. The pay for the work is usually in farm products, which are sold by the elder at the market rate. The artelshik used to return to his village in October, to spend the winter in idleness or worse, and this is the rule to-day, except as a new sort of artels, formed for what are called cottage industries, are breaking into the

hideous nightmare of the winter's sleep of the muzhik. The industries in ques

tion are the manufacture of simple instruments, toys, and ornaments of wood, which were at first very rude and poor because of the lack of proper tools, but these are being provided by the investment of private, and even in some cases of government capital, and the products are improving so rapidly that there is reason to augur well for this new effort towards the redemption of the peasantry.

Wherever the artels exist and are prosperous they improve the members by giving them the advantage of travel, or by allowing them to remain at home occupied, and with the ability to get the minor comforts of life, by inciting them to industry. by stirring within them pride in good work, by adding responsibility in themselves and their companions, by softening their lot, and in a dozen lesser ways shaking them out of the stagnation of mere animal existence. Artels formed among factory hands have even been known to lead to the purchase of a factory by the hands, to the partial payment for a schoolhouse in another instance, and to such improvement in the character of the work done in other cases that higher wages and advancing prosperity have come to both workmen and employer.

I.

that climbs the hill, and melts into a country road, and then joins the turnpike over which the stage used to come every day from Mercer. It was such a house as one sees so often in Pennsylvania and Maryland-stone and brickmostly stone, so that the bricks seemed to be built in in patches, to help out. It stood back from the street, behind a low brick wall that was crumbling here and there where the plaster had fallen out; but the vines heaped on the coping and trailing down almost to the flag-stones of the foot-path outside hid the marks of years and weather, so it never seemed worth while to repair it. In the spring these flag-stones were white with falling blossoms of the plum-trees just inside, and petals from the Pirus japonica drift

plumes over the head of the passer-by, who could see, for the wall was low, a pleasant old garden at one side of the house. To be sure, it held nothing more choice than old-fashioned perennials, that showed their friendly faces year after year-peonies, and yellow iris, and the powdery pink of queen-of-the-meadowand between them what annuals might Sow themselves, with here and there a low bush of old-man, or musk, or clovepink. The house itself was low and rambling, and much bigger than Miss Welwood needed-her family being herself and a cousin, Rose Knight. A nephew. Charles Welwood, lived with her until he was twenty-four, and, for that matter, considering the number of his visits, continued to live with her, now that he

was thirty. But the nominal household was herself and Rose; a "good girl," Old Chester called Rose, sensible, and modest, as a girl should be, and not too pretty, for that inclines to vanity. As for Miss Welwood, she had certainly been pretty when she was young; and now that she was over fifty she was like some little ruddy winter apple; there was the touch of frost on her brown hair, but her cheek had a fresh color, and her eyes were bright and smiling; she was little, and had a pretty figure, which she held very erect. "Because," she used to explain, “when I went to Miss Brace's academy, my dear, I was obliged to carry at lases on my head to make me stand straight." Miss Maria would have liked to put atlases on Rose's head; but, alas! Rose did not agree with her; and there it ended, for Miss Maria was one of those people who always want other people to do what they want to do. This characteristic does not belong to the reformer, but it is agreeable to live with. "Dear Maria Welwood," Old Chester called her -except Mrs. Barkley, who called her, generally, "a perfect fool." Now Mrs. Barkley loved Miss Welwood, that was why she called her a fool; and, besides, she limited this opinion to Miss Maria's way of allowing herself to be imposed upon.

When you come to think of it, there is nothing which makes us so angry at the people we love as their way of letting themselves be imposed upon.

Charles Welwood and his little income of about $300 a year had come to Miss Maria as the legacy of a dying brother, and for twenty-three years she had devoted herself and her pocket-book to him. When Charles was nearly sixteen, Rose, the orphan daughter of a far-away cousin, was also left, as it were, on her door step-probably on the principle of to him that hath shall be given. And if you don't call that an imposition!" Mrs. Barkley said. "She's got those two children on her hands, and it will interfere with her chances of marrying-you see if it doesn't!"

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Perhaps it did; certainly Miss Maria had not married. There had been a time, when she was about twenty-eight, and Mr. Ezra Barkley, Mrs. Barkley's brother-in-law, came to live in Old Chester, that she may have had hopes; but nothing came of them. Miss Maria be

VOL. XCVII.-No. 577.-3

gan by admiring Mr. Ezra because of his learning; and then his kindness to everything and everybody went to her own kind heart; but, to tell the truth, except for that kindness, which made him excessively polite to her as well as to everybody else, Mr. Ezra did not notice Miss Maria very much. She used to look at the back of his head in church, and listen, awe-struck, to his conversation when she came to tea with Mrs. Barkley, and she was apt to take her afternoon walk-Charles clinging to her hand--down the street by which Mr. Ezra returned from his office. But though Mr. Barkley offered her a hymn-book once or twice, and bowed with great friendliness whenever they met, and saw her home, with a lantern, and slow, ponderous politeness, when she spent the evening with his sister-in-law, she could not feel that there was anything significant in his attentions, because he offered these same civilities to every lady in Old Chester with the same gentility of manner and real kindness of motive. So Miss Maria hid her little fluttering tenderness in her own heart, where it lay, like a fly in amber, while the placid years came and went. But the memory of the buried hope was like some faint soft fragrance in her life. She never forgot it.

As for her two young people, when they arrived at those years of indiscretion of which matrimony is often the outward and visible sign, propinquity suggested that they might marry; but for once it would appear youth was prudent. Neither displayed any tender symptoms.

Charles was absorbed in making watercolor sketches, in the hope that he might one day be an artist, and had no time, he had been heard to say, contemptuously, for sentimentality. As for Rose, she had never "taken to Charles," Miss Maria used to admit, sadly; besides, all such possibilities ended when Charles, at twenty-four, still dependent on his aunt, save for his $300, married, suddenly, a nice, inefficient, sickly girl, without a cent, who promptly presented him with twins.

"And who's going to support 'em?" demanded Mrs. Barkley. "Ideclare--twins!" "But you can't blame dear Charles for that," Miss Maria protested.

"Not blame Charles? Well, I'd like to know-" Mrs. Barkley began; but ended by telling Miss Maria again that she was