would seem--as "a castle luxuriously
furnished," and the count has been reproached with it. Cheap as the
furniture is, he grumbled at it when it was purchased; he grumbles at it
still, and to me spoke of it as "sinful luxury." But then he cannot be
regarded a fair judge of what constitutes luxury.

The whole house, outside and in, is modest in the extreme. The park with
its avenues of lindens, which were in full bloom during our visit, the
ponds and lawns and forest, must have been superb in the time of his
grandfather, and even of his mother, from whom he inherited it. A grove
and thicket now occupy the site of the former manor, and screen the view
of each wing from the other. Vegetable gardens and berry patches lie
near at hand, and beds of brilliant but not rare flowers enliven the
immediate vicinity of the house.

The estate is large and fertile, though it does not lie in the famous
"black-earth zone." This begins a few miles south of it.

Plain wholesome food, simple dress, an open-air life without fixed
programme, were what we found. In the morning, after drinking tea or
coffee, with bread and butter, in the hall, we usually strolled through
the lovely forest, filled with flowers and perfumes, to the little river
about a mile distant, for a bath. The unpainted board bath-house had
seats running along the walls, and steps leading down into the water. A
framework supporting thick screens of golden rye straw extended far out
over the stream. A door upstream swung open at will for ambitious
swimmers. It was a solitary spot. The peasant girls pitching hay in the
meadows beyond with three-pronged boughs stripped of their leaves were
the only persons we ever saw. Clad in their best scarlet cotton
_sarafani_ and head kerchiefs, they added greatly to the beauty of the
landscape. Haying is such easy work compared to the rest of the summer
labors, that the best gowns are donned as for a festival.

If the boys got ahead of us on those hot mornings, when we had dispensed
with every article of clothing not absolutely necessary, we lay in the
shadow of the fragrant birches at the top of the hill on the soft, short
sward, which seems in Russia to grow as thick in dense forests as in
open glades, and waited until they could tear themselves from the cool
embrace of the stream. Then we went in, great and small, but with no
bathing-dress. The use of such a garment on such an occasion would be
regarded as a sign that one was affli