e Emperor should give him back his own, now wrongfully withheld
from him.

Balakhin stayed about the place, making himself at home with the
servants, for twenty-four hours or more. I believe that he strays about
among the landed proprietors of the district as a profession. In spite
of his willingness to call himself "Prince Romanoff" as often as any one
chose to incite him thereto, this did not impress me as a proof that he
was too deranged to earn his own living, with his healthy frame, if he
saw fit. I had observed the mania for titles in other persons (not all
Russians, by any means) who would vigorously resent the imputation that
they should be in a lunatic asylum. Moreover, this imperial "Prince
Romanoff" never forgot his "manners." He invariably rose when his
superiors (or his inferiors, perhaps I should say) approached, like any
other peasant, and he looked far more crafty than crazy.

As the peasants were all busy haying, we postponed our visit to the
village until the afternoon of Peter and Paul's day, in the hope that we
should then find some of them at home. The butler's family were drinking
tea on the porch of their neat new log house with a tinned roof, at the
end of the village near the park gate. They rose and invited us to honor
them with our company and share their meal. We declined, for lack of
time.

One of the count's daughters had told me of a curious difference
existing between the cut of the aprons of maidens and of those of
married women. I had been incredulous, and she suggested that I put the
matter to the test by asking the first married woman whom we should see.
We found a pretty woman, with beautiful brown eyes and exquisite teeth
(whose whiteness and soundness are said to be the result of the sour
black bread which the peasants eat exclusively), standing at the door of
her cottage.

"Here's your chance!"

"Show me your window, please," I said.

She laughed, and turned her back to me. There was the "window," sure
enough. The peasant apron, which is fastened under the armpits, is
pretty evenly distributed as to fullness all the way round, and in the
case of a maiden falls in straight lines in the back. But the married
woman makes hers with a semicircular opening a few inches below the
band. The points of the opening are connected by a loop of fringe, a
couple of cords not always tied, or anything that comes handy,
apparently for ornament. Now, when the husband feels moved to
demonstra