the traitor?"

"Yes."

"But who are you, then?"

"Michael Strogoff."

"And you come?"

"For God, for the Czar, and for my native land!"

MRS. TREE[79]

LAURA E. RICHARDS

Mrs. Tree was over seventy, but apart from an amazing reticulation of
wrinkles netted close and fine like a woven veil, she showed little sign
of her great age. As she herself said, she had her wits and her teeth,
and she didn't see what any one wanted with more. In her afternoon gown
of plum-colored satin she was a pleasing and picturesque figure. On this
particular afternoon it was with very little ceremony that "Direxia
Hawkes," her life-long servitor, burst into the room. Direxia had been
to market and had brought all the news with her marketing.

"Ithuriel Butters is a singular man, Mis' Tree--he give me a turn just
now, he did so. I says, 'How's Miss Butters now, Ithuriel?' I knew she'd
been real poorly, but I hadn't heard for a considerable time.

"'I ain't no notion,' says he.

"'What do you mean, Ithuriel Butters?' I says.

"'Just what I say,' says he.

"'Why, where is she?' I says. I thought she might be visitin', you know.
She has consid'able kin 'round here.

"'I ain't no idee,' says he. 'I lef her in the burying ground, that's
all I know.'

"Mis' Tree, that woman has been dead a month and I never knew a single
word about it. They're all singular people, them Butterses."

Just then there was a ring at the door bell and Direxia shuffled away to
answer it; then a man's voice was heard asking some questions. Mrs. Tree
sat alive and alert and called:

"Direxia!"

"Yes'm. Jest a minit. I'm seein' to something."

"Direxia Hawkes!"

"How you do pester me, Mis' Tree; there's a man at the door and I don't
want to let him stay there alone."

"What does he look like?"

"I don't know, he's a tramp, if he's nothing worse. Most likely he's
stealing the umbrellas while here I stand!"

"Show him in here!"

"What say?"

"Show him in here and don't pretend to be deaf when you hear as well as
I do."

"You don't want him in here, Mis' Tree--he's a tramp, I tell ye, and the
toughest looking"--

"Will you show him in here or shall I come and fetch him?"

"Well! of all the cantankerous,--here! come in, you! She wants to see
you," and a man appeared in the doorway--he was shabbily dressed, but it
was noticeable that the threadbare clothes were clean. Mrs. Tree looked
at him and then looked again.

"What do you want