soon to lose, and it was even more pitiful to think that before the close of another year the daughter would be left alone at the mines with this coarse, staring, deathlike portrait as her only consolation. I looked at the picture for a moment in silence, unable to think of any comment that would not seem cold or unsympathetic. Its defects were glaring, but I could not bring myself to criticise a work of love executed under such circumstances and in the face of such disheartening difficulties. Leaving Mr. Frost to examine Miss Armfeldt's scanty stock of brushes and colors, I turned to Mrs. Armfeldt and asked her how she had summoned up resolution enough, at her age, to undertake such a tremendous journey as that from St. Petersburg to the mines of Kará.
"I could not help coming," she said simply. "God knows what they were doing to people here. Nathalie was beaten by soldiers with the butt-ends of guns. Others were starving themselves to death. I could get only vague and alarming reports in St. Petersburg, and so I came here to see for myself. I could not bear to think of Nathalie living alone in the midst of such horrors."
"When did these things happen?" I inquired.
"In 1882 and 1883," she replied. "In May, 1882, eight prisoners made their escape, and after that the life of all the political convicts was made so hard that they finally declared a hunger-strike and starved themselves thirteen days."
While Mrs. Armfeldt and I were talking, Victor Castiúrin, Madam Kolénkina, and two or three other political convicts entered the room, Miss Armfeldt brought out the samovár and gave us all tea, and the conversation became general. I should be glad, if I had the requisite space, to repeat in detail the interesting and vivid account of life in the Kará prisons that was given me at Miss Armfeldt's house that day; but six or eight hours' conversation cannot be put into a chapter or two, and I must content myself with a brief narrative of my personal experience, and a short outline
