walls without any mattresses. Sometimes the yourtas are crowded, having as many as twelve persons in them, besides cows and calves. Men, women, and children all live together more like animals than human beings.'

"How are they clothed?"

"Their only clothes are old worn-out sheepskins which are given them by the healthy Yakuts. At one yourta I found some men with scarcely any covering; in another I saw a man and woman and two children almost naked.

"In some cases they live quite alone. One woman I saw had been already isolated for four years, and would have to live by herself till she died. Her only exercise in winter was to drag her body along the snow as best she could, since she was not able to walk, to fetch the food which was taken to her by her husband and left several yards from her hovel. She told me that if she had strength she kindled a fire, but as she appeared very weak, I do not suppose she often indulged in that luxury.'

"Then the Yakuts are very much afraid of the lepers?"

"Yes; they think that leprosy is the disease of the devil and that all lepers are 'possessed.' Therefore they isolate them. I saw a woman leper who was thus isolated. She could get scarcely anything to eat, so she used to go by night to the dwellings of her healthy kinswomen and steal what she could. She was caught, and the community ordered all her clothes to be taken away from her so as to prevent her leaving the yourta. But being very hungry, she ventured out without clothes into the intense cold, and was soon frozen to death."

"How are the lepers fed?"

"Their relations look after them to a certain extent; that is to say, they bring food to them every week; but sometimes the difficulty of reaching them is so great that any regularity is abandoned."

"How do they dispose of their dead?" "The lepers dig their own graves in the summer, as the ground is too hard in the winter. When a leper dies he must be buried by his unfortunate companions. By the law of Russia every corpse has to remain unburied for three days. At the end of that time one of the lepers crawls out to bring in the coffin which has been left near at hand; then the lepers place the body in the coffin, and, carrying it out to the grave, bury it as best they can."

"And what do you hope to do with these outcasts?"

"I hope to bring them together and show them that they are as much God's people as we are, and that there are some who care for them. For this purpose I hope to found a colony, or a series of colonies, in Northern Siberia."

"The Empress of Russia, the Cæsaravitch, and many Russian ladies and gentlemen have already helped me. The Society of Arts has published a pamphlet in Russian of my experiences which they expect will bring in £1,000, and I hope the sale of my book, which will be brought out in a few days simultaneously in England, America, and France, and of my photograph, which can be bought at the office of the Nursing Record, 376 Strand, will further assist the cause." "Are you returning to Siberia?"

"Yes. I could not live without finishing my work. I start in a short time for America, there I shall lecture and try and get together more funds. Returning some time next year to Kamtchatka, and work my way up to Yakutsk that way, to find more lepers."

"But do you not find opposition from the Greek Church?"

"On the contrary, neither the Greek Church nor the Catholics oppose me. We are all one. Here are some letters, one of which the Bishop of Yakutsk and Viluisk gave me just before I left " :—

DEAR MADAM,-Moved by a feeling of sympathy and pity for the poor lepers of the Yakutsk Government, you have accomplished an unparalleled deed of charity by coming to visit them from England and St. Petersburg, so as to see their sad condition and at once take measures to alleviate their fate. By God's help you have already accomplished this journey, having visited the Viluisk District, overcoming unheard of obstacles along the road, what with the dangers, your own health, the pain and difficulty of riding on horseback for over 3,000 versts, and the frightful contagiousness of the disease, you came to them with your fellow-travellers like angels from heaven to comfort them. By your true sympathy in their sorrow, your material help in their need, and by the promise of building them a refuge, you have raised their fallen spirits with the hope of a better and a brighter future. I feel bound to send you this, my pastoral letter, dear Madam, as an expression of my sincere gratitude for your self-sacrificing work of Christian love, praying for God's blessing to rest on the beginning of this your good work; may He continue to bless it, and thus help you to carry out your good intentions of establishing a refuge for the lepers.

Humbly yours, MELETIE, Bishop of Yakutsk and Viluisk. YAKUTSK, August 1891.

in the least, he was not sorry that he was able to visit it under a practical pretext. It was rather late now to seek out Miss Sally Dows with the avowed intent of bringing her a letter from an admirer who had been dead three years, and whose memory she had probably buried. Neither was it tactful to recall a sentiment which might have been a weakness of which she was ashamed. Yet, clear-headed and logical as Courtland was in his ordinary affairs, he was nevertheless not entirely free from that peculiar superstition which surrounds every man's romance. He believed there was something more than a mere coincidence in his unexpectedly finding himself in such favourable conditions for making her acquaintance. For the rest-if there was any rest-he would simply trust to fate.

And so,

believing himself a cool, sagacious reasoner, but being actually, as far as Miss Dows was concerned, as blind, fatuous and unreasoning as any of her previous admirers, he rode complacently forward until he reached the lane that led to the Dows' plantation.

whose careful repair would have delighted Drummond, seemed to augur well for the new enterprise. Presently, even the old-fashioned local form of the fence, a slanting zigzag, gave way to the more direct line of post and rail in the northern fashion. Beyond it presently appeared a long low frontage of modern buildings which to Courtland's surprise were entirely new in structure and design. There was no reminiscence of the usual southern porticoed gable or columned veranda. Yet it was not northern either. The factory-like outline of façade was partly hidden in Cherokee rose and jessamine.

A long roofed gallery connected the buildings and became a veranda to one. A broad, well rolled gravel drive led from the open gate to the newest building, which seemed to be the office; a smaller path diverged from it to the corner house, which, despite its severe simplicity, had a more residential appearance. Unlike Reed's house there were no lounging servants or field hands to be seen; they were evidently attending to their spective duties. Dismounting, Courtland tied his horse to a post at the office door and took the smaller path to the corner house.

re

empty, but a faint hammering was audible on the rear wall of the house, through the two open French windows at the back, curtained with trailing vines which gave upon a sunlit courtyard. Courtland walked to the window. Just before it, on the ground, stood a small light ladder, which he gently put aside to gain a better view of the courtyard as he put on his hat, and stepped out of the open window.

which had providentially fallen inside the room, and retreated ingloriously to the other end of the parlour. The voice came again from the window! struck him as being very sweet and clear. "Sophy, is that you?"

hall.

Courtland discreetly retired to the To his great relief a voice from the outside answered: "Whar, Miss Sally?"

In this attitude he suddenly felt his hat tipped from his head, followed almost instantaneously by a falling slipper, and the distinct impression of a very small foot on the crown of his head. An indescribable sensation passed over him. He hurriedly stepped back in the room, just as a small striped-stockinged foot was as hastily drawn up above the top of the window with the feminine exclamation: "Good gracious me!"

Lingering for an instant, only to assure himself that the fair speaker had secured her foothold and was in no danger of falling, Courtland snatched up his hat

"What did you move the ladder for? You might have killed me."

"'Fo' God, Miss Sally, I didn't move no ladder!" "Don't tell me, but go down and get my slipper. And bring up some more nails."

Courtland waited silently in the hall. In a few moments he heard a heavy footstep outside the rear window. This was his opportunity. Re-enteringthe parlour somewhat ostentatiously, he confronted a tail negro girl who was passing through the room carrying a tiny slipper in her hand. "Excuse me," he said politely, "but I could not find any one to announce me. Is Miss Dows at home?"

The girl instantly whipped the slipper behind her. "Is yo' wantin' Miss Mirandy Dows," she asked with great dignity, "oah Miss Sally Dowsher niece? Miss Mirandy's bin gone to Atalanta for a week."

"I have a letter for Miss Miranda, but I shall be very glad if Miss Sally Dows will receive me," returned Courtland handing the letter and his card to the girl.

She received it with a still greater access of dignity and marked deliberation. "It's clean gone outer my mind, sah, ef Miss Sally is in de resumption of visitahs at dis houah. In fac', sah," she continued with intensified gravity and an exaggera tion of thoughtfulness as the sounds of Miss Sally's hammering came shamelessly from the wall. "I doahn know exac'ly ef she's engaged playin' de harp, practisin' de languages, or paintin' in oil and watah colours, o' givin' audiences to offishals

from de Court House. It might be de houah for de one or de odder. But I'll communicate wid her, sah, in the budwoh on de uppah flo'." She backed dexterously, so as to keep the slipper behind her, but with no diminution of dignity, out of a side door. In another moment the hammering ceased, followed by the sound of rapid whispering without; a few tiny twigs and leaves slowly rustled to the ground, and then there was complete silence. He ventured to walk to the fateful window again.

Presently he heard a faint rustle at the other end of the room and he turned. A sudden tremulousness swept along his pulses and then they seemed to pause; he drew a deep breath that was almost sigh, and remained. motionless.

a

He had no preconceived idea of falling in love with Miss Sally at first sight, nor had he dreamed such a thing possible.

Even the girlish face that he had seen in the locket, although it had stirred him with a singular emotion, had not suggested that. And the ideal he had evolved from it was never a potent presence. But the exquisitely pretty

that Miss Sally had the softest pink complexion, the silkiest hair, that looked as the floss of the Indian corn might look if curled, or golden spider threads if materialised, and eyes that were in bright grey harmony with both; that the frock of India muslin, albeit home made fitted her figure perfectly from the azure bows on her shoulders to the ribbon around her waist-and that the hem of its billowy skirt showed a foot which everybody knew was the smallest foot south of

it

now

might have been painted from his own fancy of her, was still something more and something unexpected. All that had gone before had never prepared him for the beautiful girl that stood there. It was a poor explanation to say that Miss Sally was four or five years older than her picture, and that later experiences, enlarged capacity, a different life, and new ambition, had impressed her youthful face with a refined mobility. It was a weird fancy to imagine that the blood of those who had died for her had in some vague, mysterious way imparted an actual fascination to her and he dismissed it. But even the most familiar spectator like Sophy, could see

Mason and Dixon's Line! But it was something more intangible than this which kept Courtland breathless and silent.

"I'm not Miss Miranda Dows," said the vision with a frankness that was half childlike and half practical, as she extended a little hand, "but I can talk 'fahm' with yo' about as well as aunty, and I reckon from what Major Reed says heah," holding up the letter between her fingers, "as long as yo' get the persimmons yo' don't mind what kind o' pole yo' knock 'em down with."

1 The old boundary line between the free State of Pennsylvania and the Slave States of Maryland and Virginia-run by two English surveyors in 1763 and 1767, afterwards a theme and catchword of political controversy.

The voice that carried this speech was so fresh clear and sweet that I am afraid Courtland thought little of its bluntness or its conventional transgressions. But it brought him his own tongue quite unemotionally and quietly. "I don't know what was in that note, Miss Dows, but I can hardly believe that Major Reed ever put my present felicity quite in that way.'

Miss Sally laughed. charming exaggeration she waved her little hand towards the sofa.

"There! Yo' naturally wanted a little room for that, co'nnle, but now that yo've got it off-and mighty pooty it was too - yo' can sit down." And with that she sank down at one end of the sofa, prettily drew aside a white billow of skirt so as to leave ample room for Courtland, at the other, and clasping her fingers over her knees, looked demurely expectant.

"But let me hope that I am not disturbing you unseasonably," said Courtland, catching sight of the fateful little slipper beneath her skirt, and remembering the window. "I was so preocupied in thinking of your aunt as

Then with a

wall? I have some experience that way, and we can talk as we work. Do oblige me!"

The young girl looked at him brightly. "Well, now there's nothing mean about that. Yo' mean it for sure?"

"Perfectly. I shall feel so much less as if I was enjoying your company under false pretences.

"Yo' just wait here, then." She jumped from the sofa, ran out of the room, and returned presently, tying the strings of a long striped cotton blouse-evidently an habiliment of Sophy's -behind her back as she returned. It was gathered under her oval chin by a tape also tied behind her, while her fair hair was tucked under the usual red bandana handkerchief of the negro housemaid. It is scarcely necessary to add that the effect was bewitching.

the business manager of these estates that I quite forgot that she might have a lady's hours for receiving."

"We haven't got any company hours," said Miss Sally, and we haven't just now any servants for company manners, for we're short-handed in the fields and barns. When yo' came I was nailing up the laths for the vines outside because we couldn't spare carpenters from the factory. But," she added with a faint accession of mischief in her voice, "Yo' came to talk about the fahm?"

"Yes," said Courtland rising, "but not to interrupt the work on it. Will you let me help you nail up the laths on the

""

"But," said Miss Sally eyeing her guest's smartly fitting frock coat, "yo'll spoil yo'r pooty clothes, sure! Take off yo'r coatdon't mind me-and work in yo'r shirt sleeves."

Courtland obediently flung aside his coat and followed his active hostess through the French. window to the platform outside. Above them a wooden ledge or cornice, projecting several inches, ran the whole length of the building. It was on this that Miss Sally had evidently found a foothold while she was nailing up a trellis work of laths between it and the windows of the second floor. Courtland found the ladder, mounted to the ledge, followed by the young girl, who smilingly waived his proffered hand to help her up, and the two gravely set to work. But in the intervals of hammering and tying up the vines Miss Sally's tongue was not idle. Her talk was as fresh, as quaint, as original as herself, and yet so practical and to the purpose of Courtland's

H