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smart, and do you be sure to put on your best."

The lady retired to comply with these directions, while the major called a servant, and ordered him to fetch his uniform surtout, the carefully preserved memorial of his military career. Sundukow had served under the Empress Elizabeth, and had retired from the army about fifteen years before the time of which I am speaking.

While they are dressing, and the servants are opening the door, which at that period was always kept locked night and day even in the towns, I gain time to inform my readers, that Sundukow was a gentleman residing in the government of Wladimir, and that he had a beautiful daughter. The lily and the rose were blended in her lovely face; her figure was majestic as a queen's, and her parents, be it observed, were wealthy. Many suitors solicited the hand of Glafira; but would it have been prudent to give her to a man who perhaps possessed no more than about fifty peasants? Her parents had unfortunately the weakness to seek an opulent bridegroom for their daughter. We shall only observe, by the way, that young Chabarow, after his father's death, would become the master of five hundred peasants, and then the reader may easily guess the reason why the major wished his wife and daughter to appear