sense compulsory.  The priest in our friends’ village, who had lived among them, had told us that such is the case.  But he had also declared that they possess many estimable traits of character, and that their family life is deserving of imitation in more than one particular.  This village of theirs looked prosperous and clean.  The men, being brought more into contact with outsiders than the women, speak Russian better than the latter, and more generally.  It is not exactly a case which proves woman’s conservative tendencies.

On reaching the river, and finding that no steamer was likely to arrive for several hours, we put up at the cottage of a prosperous peasant, which was patronized by many of the neighboring nobles, in preference to the wretched inns of that suburb of the wharves.  The “best room” had a citified air, with its white curtains, leaf plants, pretty china tea service, and photographs of the family on the wall.  These last seemed to us in keeping with the sewing-machine which we had seen a peasant woman operating in a shop of the little posting-town inland.  They denoted progress, since many peasants cherish religious scruples or superstitions about having their portraits taken in any form.

The athletic sons, clad only in shirts and trousers of sprigged print, with fine chestnut hair, which compensated for their bare feet, vacated the room for our use.  They and the house were as clean as possible.  Outside, near the entrance door, hung the family washstand, a double-spouted teapot of bronze suspended by chains.  But it was plain that they did not pin their faith wholly to it, and that they took the weekly steam bath which is customary with the peasants.  Not everything was citified in the matter of sanitary arrangements.  But these people seemed to thrive, as our ancestors all did, and probably regarded us as over-particular.

To fill in the interval of waiting, we made an excursion to the heart of the town, and visited the pretty public garden overhanging the river, and noteworthy for its superb dahlias.  As we observed the types of young people who were strolling there, we recognized them, with slight alterations only, which the lapse of time explained, from the types which we had seen on the stage in Ostrovsky’s famous play “The Thunderstorm.”  The scene of that play is laid on the banks of the Volga, in just such a garden; why should it not have been on this spot?

All peasant izbui are so bewilderingly alike that we found our special cottage again with some difficulty, by the light of the young moon.  By this time “the oldest inhabitant” had hazarded a guess as to the line whose steamer would arrive first.  Accordingly, we gathered up our small luggage and our Tchuvash costume, and fairly rolled down the steep, pathless declivity of slippery turf, groping our way to the right wharf.  How the luggage cart got down was a puzzle.  Here we ordered in the samovar, and feasted until far into the