CHAPTER X.
TROIKA PARTIES.
WHAT is one to do with a man who will not take No for an answer? Ever since my conversation with Mr. Thurber, recorded on a previous page, he has constituted himself my cavalier servante. I never go anywhere that he does not follow; I never express a wish for anything that he does not attempt to gratify it. When he is talking to me, the other people who happen to be in the room leave us altogether out of their conversation; and when he joins us in our walks, I am invariably left to walk with him. In vain I struggle to impress people with the idea that I do not prefer Mr. Thurber's company to all others. I am met with an indulgent smile; and, most significant of all, Tom has ceased to chaff me! They all seem to take it for granted that we are in love with each other; and the cool way in which Mr. Thurber appropriates me is irritating beyond measure.
Alice had invited a few friends to dinner one night. She and Grace sat down with a sheet of paper and a pencil, to decide where the guests should be placed. I was about to go for a drive with Judith; but I determined to give them something to ponder over while I was out.
"I don't care how you seat the people," I said quietly, as I reached the door; then, turning towards them to give full effect to my words, "but if you put me beside Mr. Thurber, I will never show myself at another of your dinner parties." So saying, I left the room abruptly, and waited in the sledge for Judith.
There was a little pout on her face when she appeared. We were muffled up so that we could not move our heads; and my cousin's voice was almost lost in her capacious fur collar when she began to speak to me.
"You are ruining the dinner," were the words which at last reached my ears. "Russians do not like the English; and if you put him beside either of those Russian ladies, they will not speak to him" (the rest was lost).
"If you mean Mr. Thurber," I responded, "I don't know why he should have been asked at all. I did not want him; and I don't see why he cannot be put between you and Grace. You are not Russians, and you don't dislike Englishmen."
"But, dear Dorris! (earnestly) I have to sit next Prince Tucheff. Grace is on your side of the table, and will be on Mr. Thurber's right; and if he sits by me, George must go between you and Grace, and that will make things all wrong."
"Oh!" I cried, with some asperity, "let him sit next me, by all means. I prefer him to George, if I must have a choice of evils."
"I think," said my companion, "that you might have confessed your preference for Mr. Thurber at once, instead of playing indifference. I knew you would not be satisfied unless you had him."
Her gay laugh rang out on the frosty air.
"Judith," I responded severely, "your remarks are not only in bad taste, but they are unkind. Why every one" (growing peevish in my tone) "should take it for granted that I am in love with that Englishman, I fail to see!"
I knew by Judith's voice when she replied that she was smothering her laughter. "Because you are so touchy about him."
"Nonsense!" cried I sharply, and then subsided into silence, which seemed to be my only refuge.
When we reached home we found George in the ante-room, bandaging the leg of a brown setter, of which he is very fond. His occupation was so absorbing that he noticed us only by a bow; and we joined the group of admiring moujiks who were watching the operation. The leg was apparently badly injured; and George was as tender as a woman in his way of handling it, and even to my unpractised eye betrayed much skill. Slowly and carefully he finished his task, then made the dog lie down, and turned his attention to us.
"An experienced surgeon could hardly have done it better than that," he said to Judith; then addressing me,—
"The dog was run over just under your window, and I brought him in at once. I hope you don't mind my making a hospital of the house?" with a smile.
"Poor fellow!" said Judith, addressing the dog, before I had time to answer. "Will you leave him here?"
"Oh, no. I shall take him with me."
"But you are coming in first?" I said, walking towards the drawing-room door.
They both followed. Judith, seeming to be possessed with a spirit of mischief, immediately began to speak.
"Dorris and I have just had another quarrel."
I smiled. I had almost recovered from my annoyance, so I could afford to do so.
"A very serious one!" I exclaimed, tossing my hat on a table, and pushing my hair away from my forehead, while Judith sat down, and began slowly to pull off her gloves.
"One of you," said George, "is a dangerous person to live with,—or is it both?"
"It is Dorris, of course."
"Quite true," I responded meekly. "I am generally in fault."
"Oh, I was only joking," cried my cousin. "One cannot quarrel alone. But," she added, with a loving little smile, "we don't disagree much, after all. I am not afraid of Dorris: I tell her what I think, and then she forgives me. A quarrel with you," turning to George, "would be a much more serious matter."
He was looking over some photographs which lay on the table, and paid no attention to Judith's remark, except to say, in rather an absent manner, "Why?"
"I think," she answered reflectively, "that it would take a great deal to make you angry, but that when your wrath is once aroused, it is deep. I should say it would be difficult for you to forgive."
He was looking attentively at one of the pictures, turned it round to see the artist's name on the back, and then showed it to me. "When did you have this taken?"
"Just before I left America."
"It is very poor." And before I could say "Thank you!" he spoke abruptly to Judith: "So you think that I am unforgiving? What does Miss Dorris Romilly think?" playing absently with the photograph, and speaking as if his mind were somewhere else.
Judith broke in, as I was hesitating what to reply, "I know what she is going to say. She is preparing to tell you, in her most sarcastic manner, that she has never thought about it at all."
George laughed, with a tinge of bitterness.
"Why should she think about it?" looking at me with what seemed like unnecessary earnestness. "I was insufferably conceited to imagine that she had given an instant's attention to such an insignificant subject as my character."
"If I had done so," said I, smothering a yawn, "doubtless you suppose that my judgment of you would be different from Judith's."
"Yes," resuming the study of the photograph. "If you have any opinion of me, I should say it was not a favorable one."
"Why do you say that?" I asked, beginning to feel interested.
"If I answered that question, I should be wandering very far from the original subject of conversation, for I should tell you something about yourself."
"Oh, pray tell it!" cried Judith. "I would like to hear it."
"Perhaps Miss Dorris would not."
"Disagreeable truths are generally useful things to hear. I am not afraid of them," said I, in an indifferent tone, leaning my head against the back of my chair and half closing my eyes.
"This is not very disagreeable," pursued Count Piloff, biting his mustache, and looking at me rather uneasily. "I was only going to say that you impress me as a young woman who wraps herself in cold indifference, and looks down from the pedestal in calm criticism upon us, poor struggling mortals. As I am a vast distance below your level, you would naturally find much to condemn and little to commend in me."
He stopped; I opened my eyes to their widest extent, and gave him one look; then tried, unsuccessfully, to resume my nonchalant manner. He met my glance coldly, with a half-smile on his face. He could have said nothing which would have made me so angry as to insinuate that I set myself up as superior to all the world. That was unmistakably his meaning, politely expressed.
Inwardly fuming, I strove to be outwardly calm as I answered, after a moment's pause, during which both of my companions looked at me expectantly, "You were right in saying it was 'not very disagreeable.' You only mean that I think myself better than other people. I dare say that is true."
"Indeed, it is not true," cried Judith indignantly. "The only trouble with Dorris is that she sees her faults too plainly for her own happiness."
"Well," I said, laughing, "I must be a very enigmatical person, to call forth two opinions so exactly the opposite of each other."
George looked from me to Judith, and from her back again to me, with a covert amusement in his face which puzzled me.
"I know you better than Count Piloff does," insisted my champion, with a brilliant red spot in each cheek.
He smiled. "You asked me for my opinion, Miss Judith, and now you are finding fault with me for giving it."
"No, not for giving it; for having such an utterly foolish one."
Here we all laughed, and Judith said, "I insist upon your telling him what you think about him, Dorris,—whether you agree with me that he is unforgiving."
"But has she not already allowed that she has never given the subject a thought?"
"No," said I hastily; "it was you who said that. I did not agree to it."
"Very well, then. Let us hear it."
"I was only going to say," I began slowly, "that you have too little depth of feeling to be unforgiving. It is not so politely expressed as your opinion of me, but it is quite as flattering."
A slight tinge of red mounted to George's forehead, and a look which I should have called pain in any other person, but which in him I translated vexation, came into his eyes. He spoke at once, quite earnestly,—
"You are very, very much mistaken, Miss Romilly. I almost wish you were right."
"You know nothing about each other," said Judith quickly, "and the best thing you can both do is to become acquainted immediately."
"Miss Romilly will never become acquainted with me,—she has too great a contempt for me," said George, with a laugh from which all trace of vexation had vanished.
"Count Piloff will never know me any better,—he considers me too self-righteous," said I, resuming a careless manner.
Presently he threw down the pictures which he had been fingering, started up, and came over to my chair, looking down on me with a thoughtful smile. "You have no idea how happy I am."
"I am glad, but I fail to discover the cause," I responded, looking up at him inquiringly.
"Because," gazing at me critically, as if something about me interested him, "I am to take you out to dinner to-night, and then I shall have an opportunity of showing you—if you are open to conviction—that my feelings are deeper than you think."
"How do you know you are to take me out?"
"Alice told me so. She said that you were so sensitive as to a certain young man whose name has been mentioned once or twice lately in connection with yours, that of two evils,—his company or mine,—you chose mine."
Judith began to shake with suppressed laughter. Count Piloff leaned against the mantel, and looked at us both as if we were interesting studies of human nature.
"What are you laughing at, Judith?" I asked.
"Nothing, only—"
A look of responsive amusement flashed into the young man's eyes. "Perhaps your cousin used the same expression that I did about the two evils?" he interrogated Judith.
She burst into a peal of laughter, and I, feeling very red and foolish, was obliged to join her. At last she began to make apologies. "But you see—it was so funny! I will tell him, Dorris. He thinks we are so rude to laugh this way. Besides" (looking at George, who was perfectly grave), "you will not mind, I am sure, if I tell you. Dorris said—"
"Judith," I remonstrated, "this is childish!"
She paid no attention to me. "Dorris said that of two evils she chose the least, which was—Mr. Thurber."
We laughed no more. Judith was too much frightened, now that she had said it, and I was too vexed. I did not look at George, and for an instant he said nothing. Then in his ordinary manner he remarked, "I am disappointed: now Miss Romilly will always think that I have no feeling. I must run away and hide my diminished head," he added, taking his hat from the table.
Conquering my pride, and walking up to him with a smile which was meant to be conciliatory, and holding out my hand, I said, "I am very rude sometimes. I hope you are not as unforgiving as Judith thinks you are."
Taking my proffered hand, he answered, "Even if I were, it would be easy to forgive you for preferring Thurber to me. I shall see you this evening. Au revoir," and he was gone.
"O Judith," I cried, "what have you done?"
"I know it," she responded, looking somewhat frightened and very penitent. "I am so sorry!" putting an arm round my waist. "Never mind; it will do him no harm."
"But it sounded so ill-bred of me," I returned disconsolately. "However, I will not make myself unhappy about it."
"I don't think he cared," Judith added consolingly. "He did not seem to care."
That was not what I feared. I knew that no remark of mine could have the power to wound George's feelings; but I did not wish any one to think me rude.
But the occurrence had almost ceased to trouble me when, at seven o'clock that evening, we arrived at Alice's door and joined the other guests. There were only a few minutes for conversation before dinner was announced, and Mr. Thurber took possession of me. We followed the others through a large salon, stopped in a small room preceding the dining-room, where a table was spread with caviare, sandwiches, cheese, dried fish, vadka, and some cordials.
"This is the zakouschka, I suppose," I said inquiringly; and Mr. Thurber assented.
"It is expected to sharpen the appetite," he added; "but I advise you not to try it with a view to that effect. You will be unable to enjoy your dinner."
"Why don't we sit down for this repast?" I asked.
"Because it only occupies a few minutes."
"Well, I like caviare, and I shall take some, please."
Before I had finished the plateful which he brought me, I was obliged to abandon it, and follow the others into the dining-room.
Much to my disappointment, the dinner was not characteristically Russian. The people who give dinners in Petersburg have French cooks, so there is no opportunity to taste the national dishes. I felt like doing something exciting; a spirit of recklessness entered into me, and I looked about for a good opening. Talking with Mr. Thurber was commonplace; I was too far from George to begin a discussion with him,—besides, he looked too coldly indifferent to be aroused. On my left sat a handsome Russian. I discovered, after a second glance, that he was the same person who had been so attentive to me at the Grand Duke's christening. A sudden thought struck me,—I would make Mr. Thurber jealous!
I turned at once to my Russian neighbor, and began a lively conversation with him. He was rather young, and I tried several subjects before I found one on which it pleased him to talk; and that subject was—postage stamps! The collection which he had, and that which his brother had, and that which he hoped to have in the course of years, all this was poured into my sympathetic ear. I inclined my head towards him, listening with an air of absorbed attention, and hardly stopping to taste the various articles which were placed before me. I presented the back of my head persistently to Mr. Thurber. I hardly looked away from the young Russian, and he neglected his other neighbor shamefully. Once or twice I cast a furtive glance at Judith; but she did not meet my eye. Once I caught George actually scowling at me; but he turned his eyes away quickly when I looked at him.
Towards the end of dinner, I concluded to see how Mr. Thurber bore my neglect; and, bracing up my courage to endure the sight of his wrath, I turned towards him. Grace was next on his other side, and then my friend, the ambassador. Mr. Thurber was sipping his champagne, and replying to some remark of the latter's.
"Undoubtedly, if the tax were put in that form, it would be more beneficial."
"What form?" I inquired.
He started. "I was discussing a subject of slight importance to you ladies," he answered calmly. "But I intended to ask you what you thought of this claret. I find it delicious."
"I have not noticed," I replied.
His manner was the reverse of annoyed. He seemed pleased with himself, with me, with every one, and, above all, with the claret. Decidedly, my plan for making him jealous had not been a success; and I now found Mr. Cheremenieff and his stamps doubly tiresome.
I was eating my ice in silence, deserted for the moment by both neighbors, when Mr. Thurber's voice broke upon my ear:—
"Russian women are extremely brilliant, and are also good talkers; but there are no women as beautiful as Americans, you know."
I was forced to admit that he was right, judging from those who were present. "What a pity," I exclaimed, "that they do not always behave as well as they look!"
"Do they not?" asked my companion.
"What an unnecessary question for a man who has travelled as much as you have!"
At that moment Alice rose from the table, and we were obliged to follow her example. The gentlemen accompanied the ladies back to the drawing-room. Mr. Thurber looked at me inquiringly.
"Do you allow me to follow the Russian custom?" he asked.
"What custom?" said I, somewhat puzzled.
He pointed to Prince Tucheff, who was kissing Judith's hand, and murmuring something about "mille remerciements," and who repeated the performance with Alice. All the gentlemen followed his example, thanking the ladies whom they had escorted, and then the hostess in the same manner. The Russian ladies also approached Alice, shook hands with and thanked her.
After watching the others I turned to Mr. Thurber, who stood at my side, the picture of patience.
"Hand-kissing is a supremely foolish custom. Don't you think so?"
"Yes," he answered impassively. "I do."
Visions of this stiff Englishman kissing my hand ran through my head, and amused me. Coffee was served, and Mr. Thurber wended his way to the smoking-room, with most of the gentlemen and one of the ladies. Judith brought her cup of coffee over to where I sat, on a tiny sofa, and placed herself beside me. She fixed two lustrous gray eyes on me, with an indefinable expression in their depths.
"Dorris Romilly," she exclaimed earnestly, "never, never as long as you live, talk to me again about being a coquette."
"What do you mean?" I asked stupidly. "What are you talking about?"
"You! The way you ignored that poor man's feelings, and encouraged that uninteresting little boy until he entirely lost his head!"
I laughed softly. "I was only trying to create a little excitement, but I did not mean to excite you."
"Excite me! Why, I was simply struck dumb. You, who scorn a flirt! You, who have lectured me by the hour together for things not half as bad as this! Upon my word, Dorris, it is too bad, when you know that Mr. Thurber is in love with you."
"But he did not care, after all," I said dolefully; and looking up, I saw that a part of our conversation had been overheard by George, who stood patiently awaiting a chance to speak.
"Are my services required as peacemaker?" he asked.
"You are to scold Dorris for having suddenly developed into a coquette."
"I cannot," he answered gravely, "for I don't think she has."
"Then you did not observe her at dinner?"
"I beg your pardon. I observed her very closely; but I have also noticed her on former occasions, and I don't think the quality has developed suddenly. All women are natural coquettes."
"I cannot listen to such nonsense," said Judith, while my face burned painfully, and I mentally pronounced George more disagreeable than usual.
"Will you come and see that collection of arms which we were talking about?" he asked, with a sudden change of tone, looking at Judith.
She immediately rose to follow him.
Turning to me he added, as if it were a second thought, "Will you come?"
"No, thank you," I answered ungraciously, keeping my seat, and helping myself to a cup of tea which was offered me.
The guests soon began to take their departure, and by half-past nine no one was left there except the family.
"I suppose we must go home too," said Tom reluctantly. "Do your dinner-parties generally break up as early as this?"
"Generally," responded Alice; "but don't go. We wish to talk over our troika party."
Tom was all enthusiasm immediately; and before we left it was agreed that we should meet at Alice's for our troika ride, at nine o'clock the next evening.
When the night came it was bright starlight, and the mercury stood ten degrees above zero. We started in seven troikas, shortly after nine. Our driver wore the traditional peasant's cap; his face was deeply bronzed, while his beard and hair were a few shades darker. Madame Kirovieff,—who is five years my junior, as I afterwards discovered,—Tom, Mr. Thurber, and Sacha, were in the vehicle with me.
We were wrapped up to our eyes, our feet put into fur muffs, the robes tucked in about us, and off we started, with a yell from the driver and a whoop from Tom. That young man behaved as if he were not more than ten years old. He screamed at the driver in Russian,—of which he knows about six words,—and every time I opened my mouth to remonstrate, he insisted upon it that I should take cold if I spoke, and drowned my voice in a sea of warnings.
Once outside the city, with a clear road ahead, the driver emitted a series of whoops, and started the horses off at a rattling pace. The gentlemen all began calling to him, and I supposed they were heaping abuse upon his head; but when it was translated I was relieved to find that the most severe remark they had made was, "Go on, my beauty!" Away we flew, over the sparkling snow, to the islands; past empty houses, making the echoes ring with our gay voices, and some times arousing a sleeping dog, whose startled bark brought forth such a series of howls from our equipage that he was forced to retire.
We were nearly three quarters of an hour in reaching our destination,—a place on one of the islands, called Samarcand. Leaving our troikas in the court-yard of a restaurant, we walked a short distance to some ice-hills, which were lighted with Chinese lanterns. A flight of steps about thirty feet high took us into a sort of pavilion. As I stood at the head of the steps, I beheld the glissade in front of me. It made my blood run cold to look at it. It was four or five feet broad, built of wood, covered with smooth ice, and sloping at an angle of forty-five degrees. After reaching the ground, it continued its course on a level for some distance, until another flight of steps was reached, leading to another pavilion, from which one could slide back to the starting-place. The two courses ran side by side, and were divided by a low wooden railing. Rows of Chinese lanterns illuminated the scene.
When I looked down that steep slope of ice, my heart failed me, and I meekly said I would wait there and rest, while the others went down. There was some laughter at my expense, and not the slightest attention was paid to my objections.
A sled with two seats was produced, and I was put behind Judith. Nicolas took the seat beside me, wrapped his arm tightly around me, and off we pitched! It was such a frightful moment when we started that I did not even scream. I felt as if my last hour had come. I remember to have dreamed once that I was falling down a bottomless abyss; and certainly, I thought the dream was being realized in the few seconds it took us to descend that hill. Such a horrible, feeling as came over me I hope never to experience again. Yet people do this for pleasure!
When we reached the end of the slide, I begged Nicolas, with tears in my eyes, to let me walk back to the place from which we had started; but he only laughed at me. I braced up my courage, and got on the sled again, saying, in a broken voice, that I knew I should die of fright, but I supposed Nicolas did not care. Down we went; and this time I got breath enough to scream, which was a great relief. I absolutely refused to be inveigled into trying it a second time.
I suppose there is a terrible fascination about it, like reading of murders. I had to eat twenty olives before I learned to like them, and it might be the same with the ice-hills: it is an acquired taste. We finally returned to the restaurant, where we took off our wraps, and had some hot tea, which served to revive my drooping spirits.
A discouraged-looking man took his seat at the piano, and played a few bars, then retired; and on a platform at one end of the room there appeared a group of six women and as many men, whose dark eyes and swarthy skins proclaimed their Bohemian origin. They took their seats in a semicircle; the leader—a hideous man, with a guitar—gave a signal, and they began to sing. It was music which struck me with unutterable sadness,—like the voice of deep anguish, which bursts from homeless, hopeless wanderers. It opened with a wail, which grew gradually louder, the women interspersing their part with shrill cries. The song became more spirited as it went on, and the screams more frequent, till I imagined it to be the cry of souls in mortal agony, and shuddered instinctively as I listened. The leader swung his guitar about his head, placed one hand on his hip, and danced a few steps in a slow, mournful way. When the song ended, it was quite a shock to be brought back to every-day life by the bright, cheerful voice of Alice.
"What do you think of it?" she inquired.
"Don't ask me: it is too strange and weird. How dreamy they all look, as though they had insight into a region which is hidden from us!"
"It is a pity they affect French toilettes now, instead of clinging to their own costumes: they are quite picturesque in their national dress. Some of them," added my sister, "are very wealthy; but such is the love they have for a Bohemian life that they remain with the band."
"Look at this!" said Nicolas hastily.
The chorus had begun again; and, while the voices rose and fell in that unearthly wail, a woman stood up, waved her arms slowly round her head in a circling, sleepy movement, and glided about the stage,—being apparently impelled by some influence outside of herself, for there was no motion of the feet that we could see. She made the circuit two or three times; then the accompaniment grew wilder, the dancer uttered a sharp cry, a "Ha-ha!" which grated on every nerve, and which she repeated at intervals through the remainder of the performance.
The circling movement stopped suddenly, and her arms fell stiffly by her sides. With her great, dark eyes fixed on some thought far, far away, she glided towards the front of the stage, quivering from head to foot. What strange spirit had taken possession of her, and moved her as the wind does a leaf? There was not a muscle in her body which did not move. Through the amber-colored silk dress which she wore could be traced every line and curve of her exquisite figure, as it trembled in this weird spasm. Gradually the chorus grew louder, the cries shriller, till the very height of pain or ecstasy was reached; and then the music ceased abruptly, the dancing-girl became a statue, and the Tsiganies sat looking straight before them, indifferent to everything in heaven and earth, with an unutterably sad stare in their dusky eyes.
"It gives me too much pain to see that!" I exclaimed. "It is unearthly. I cannot smile again this evening."
"You must try," said George; "for now we are going to dance, and we shall have no more of the gypsy music to-night."
The discouraged man resumed his seat at the piano, and struck up a waltz.
I thought that nothing more could astonish me in Mr. Thurber; but I must say I had a slight touch of surprise when he asked me to waltz with him, and I was still more surprised to find that he danced admirably. He seems to do everything well which he attempts at all. Is he the sedate, unbending man I fancied him at first, or is he the gay, youthful fellow which he now and then seems, or is he a little of both, or is he neither? These are the questions which perplex me. Judith gives me no satisfaction; she says he does not know what he is himself. Tom is no judge; for he has developed a sort of blind idolatry for his new friend.
Mr. Thurber escorted me in to supper at one o'clock. George sat at one end of a long table; we took our places beside him, Judith opposite us, carrying on a brisk flirtation with Mr. Novissilsky. She hardly spoke to any one else.
There was a cup of steaming bouillon before each of us. Mr. Thurber tasted his, and looked at me as I was about to lift mine to my lips.
"I advise you not," he exclaimed.
"What is it?"
"I don't know. Something horrible."
"Do you know what it is?" I inquired of George, who had just swallowed his.
"Batchuk," said he briefly.
I knew as little about it as before, but I attacked it valiantly, and told Mr. Thurber I did not think it so bad after all.
"What is it made of, Count Piloff?" I asked.
"Beets, I believe. But see what you think of this dish."
It was some hot meat, which looked like venison.
"Ah!" ejaculated my English neighbor, "this is not equal to the bear I shot, Miss Dorris."
"Asparagus?" I cried, as another dish was passed to me. "At this season? In Russia?"
"Asparagus is never so good," quoth George, "as when it is out of season."
"You people," interrupted Tom, "talk of nothing but eating. I will tell you one thing," he continued, in a confidential tone, to any one who would listen to him, "this is the first dry champagne I have had in this country."
"I brought it with me," Mr. Thurber whispered in my ear. "You will notice that the Russians all prefer the sweet, except perhaps your neighbor."
To my surprise, however, George drank nothing except claret and water. He made a few efforts to open a conversation with Judith, but she did not respond as readily as usual, and he gave her up. Not a shade of annoyance appeared on his face; on the contrary he was particularly genial, and devoted himself to Mr. Thurber and me with apparent pleasure. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly at that end of the table.
Coming home was the most delightful part of the excursion, however, although we were not so boisterous as on the way out. Madame Kirovieff and I rode backwards, giving the three gentlemen the other seat; for in that way we avoided having the wind in our faces. Poor Tom was put in the middle, and was nearly squeezed into nothing.
The horse on my side got his leg over the trace, and made an effort to demolish the back of my head, which I took out of his way as speedily as possible. Tom and Sacha were out of the sleigh in an instant, and at the horse's head; but Mr. Thurber sat calmly in his place and gave directions to the others.
"Don't jump!" he cried, seizing my hands.
"I have no more idea of it than you have," I responded calmly. "Don't you think you would be more useful if you held the horse instead of my hands?"
"Not the slightest need of it"; and nothing would induce him to get out.
We were soon flying through the air again, with nothing but the bells and the gay voices to break the stillness, snow-fields stretching away on either side, and the stars shining brightly above us. When we reached the Neva, and the long row of lights on the border of the river became visible, Tom said, in a disgusted tone,—
"Is this all that is going to happen to us?"
"What more do you wish?" asked the Russian lady, who by the way is very beautiful.
"I supposed we should have a runaway, at least. I had no idea a troika ride was such an ordinary affair."
But we had no accident. The streets were still and empty, and a distant clock struck five when we drew up at our own door. Rousing the sleepy Suisse, we got into the house, and, finding the samovar hot, we indulged in some tea, and then went to bed.