few women
who are so clever and practical.

One day, as I was sitting, armed with thimble and needle, waiting for
her, the count discovered a hole in his pocket, and asked his niece to
mend it for him. She had not her implements. I volunteered,--to do the
mending, not to lend the wherewithal. The pocket was of black silk, my
thread of white cotton, but that was of no consequence. I seated myself
comfortably on the sand, and speedily discovered not one hole, but a row
of holes such as wear along the seams of pockets. The count was greatly
annoyed at the trouble he was giving me, protested as I began on each
new hole, and was very restless. I was finally obliged to speak.

"Lyeff Nikola'itch," I said, "do me the favor to sit still. Your
reputation as well as mine is involved in this work. It must be done
thoroughly and neatly quite as much for your sake as for mine."

"How so?" he asked in surprise.

"My woman's reputation for neat mending trembles in the balance; and do
not you advocate the theory that we should help our fellow-men? You have
helped others; it is your turn now to be experimented on. And besides,
if the fellow-man obstinately refuses to be helped by others, how are we
to do our duty by him? How could you work for others, if they persisted
in following out the other half of your doctrine and doing everything
for themselves? 'Tis plain that you understand how to render services
far better than to receive them. Reform. Submit."

The count laughed, with a sort of grim bewilderment in his eye, and
behaved in an exemplary manner for the few remaining moments. I mentally
thanked Fate for providing me with an opportunity for suggesting an
object lesson on a point which had puzzled me not a little, and which I
had been pining to attack in some form. He did not explain away my
difficulties, it is true, but I was satisfied with having presented the
other side of the shield to his attention.

On another occasion, as we sat under the trees, a peasant came, scythe
on shoulder, to complain to the countess of his wrongs. No one ever went
to the count, knowing that his wife had full management. Peasants who
came in a deputation to parley about hiring or buying extra land, and so
on, applied directly to her. The comrades of this Vasily Alexei'itch had
got two buckets of _vodka_, and had forced him, who detested liquor, to
drink of it. Then they had become quarrelsome (he was peaceable), and
they had torn his shirt--so