with a smile of amusement which had
puzzled us, by a Moscow friend, an officer in the army. Prices were very
high at this hotel, which, like American summer hotels, is forced to
make its hay for the year during the season of six weeks, after which it
is locked up. Our room was small; the floor, of rough boards, was bare;
the beds were not comfortable. For the same price, in Petersburg or
Moscow, we should have had a spacious room on the _bel etage_,
handsomely furnished, with rugs on an inlaid floor.

Across one corner of the dining-room was built a low platform, on which
stood a piano. We soon discovered its use. Coming in about nine o'clock
in the evening, we ordered our _samovar_ for tea in the dining-room,--
a most unusual place. The proper place was our own room. But we had
found a peculiar code of etiquette prevailing here, governed by
excessive modesty and propriety, no doubt, but an obstructionist
etiquette, nevertheless. The hall-waiter, whose business it is to serve
the _samovar_ and coffee, was not allowed to enter our room, though his
fellows had served us throughout the country, after the fashion of the
land. Here we were compelled to wait upon the leisure of the
chambermaid, a busy and capricious person, who would certainly not be on
hand in the evening if she was not in the morning. Accordingly, we
ordered our tea in the dining-room, as I have said. Presently, a chorus
of girls, dressed all alike, mounted the platform, and sang three songs
to an accompaniment banged upon the piano by a man. Being violently
applauded by a long table-full of young merchants who sat near, at whom
they had been singing and staring, without any attempt at disguise, and
with whom they had even been exchanging remarks, they sang two songs
more. They were followed by another set of girls, also in a sort of
uniform costume, who sang five songs at the young merchants. It appeared
that one party was called "Russian singers," and the other "German
singers." We found out afterwards, by watching operations on another
evening, that these five songs formed the extent of their respective
repertories.

A woman about forty-five years of age accompanied them into the room,
then planted herself with her back against the wall near us, which was
as far away from her charges as space permitted. She was the
"sheep-dog," and we soon saw that, while discreetly oblivious of the
smiles, glances, and behavior of her lambs,--as all well-trained
socie