ance, and her body seemed to rise from the ground to meet
the music ringing from an unseen source in the far-distant height. At
times bending over, she plucked a field flower, and with light touches
of her slender, agile fingers, she fondly stroked the quivering petals
and hummed quietly and prettily.

Over them burned the kindly spring sun. The blue depths flashed
softly. At the sides of the road stretched a dark pine forest. The
fields were verdant, birds sang, and the thick, resinous atmosphere
stroked the face warmly and tenderly.

All this moved the mother's heart nearer to the woman with the bright
eyes and the bright soul; and, trying to keep even pace with her, she
involuntarily pressed close to Sofya, as if desiring to draw into
herself her hearty boldness and freshness.

"How young you are!" the mother sighed.

"I'm thirty-two years old already!"

Vlasova smiled. "I'm not talking about that. To judge by your face,
one would say you're older; but one wonders that your eyes, your voice
are so fresh, so springlike, as if you were a young girl. Your life is
so bard and troubled, yet your heart is smiling."

"The heart is smiling," repeated Sofya thoughtfully. "How well you
speak--simple and good. A hard life, you say? But I don't feel that
it is hard, and I cannot imagine a better, a more interesting life than
this."

"What pleases me more than anything else is to see how you all know the
roads to a human being's heart. Everything in a person opens itself
out to you without fear or caution--just so, all of itself, the heart
throws itself open to meet you. I'm thinking of all of you. You
overcome the evil in the world--overcome it absolutely."

"We shall be victorious, because we are with the working people," said
Sofya with assurance. "Our power to work, our faith in the victory of
truth we obtain from you, from the people; and the people is the
inexhaustible source of spiritual and physical strength. In the people
are vested all possibilities, and with them everything is attainable.
It's necessary only to arouse their consciousness, their soul, the
great soul of a child, who is not given the liberty to grow." She
spoke softly and simply, and looked pensively before her down the
winding depths of the road, where a bright haze was quivering.

Sofya's words awakened a complex feeling in the mother's heart. For
some reason she felt sorry for her. Her pity, however, was not
offensive; not b