plantation of birches set out by the count’s own hands a quarter of a century before, and grown now to stout and serviceable giants, the twelve o’clock breakfast was ready under the trees.  At this informal meal every one sat where he pleased, and helped himself.  At dinner, on the contrary, my place was always at the count’s left hand.  We sat on whatever offered itself.  Sometimes I had a wooden chair, sometimes a bit of the long bench like a plasterer’s horse.  Once, when some one rose suddenly from the other end of this, I tumbled over on the count and narrowly escaped wrecking his dinner.

At no meal did the count ever eat a mouthful of meat, despite urgent persuasion.  Boiled buckwheat groats, salted cucumbers, black bread, eggs with spinach, tea and coffee, sour kvas (beer made from black bread), and cabbage soup formed the staple of his diet, even when ill, and when most people would have avoided the cucumbers and kvas, at least.

The family generally met as a whole for the first time at breakfast.  The count had been busy at work in the fields, in writing or reading in his study; the boys with their tutor; the countess copying her husband’s manuscript and ordering the household.  After breakfast every one did what he pleased until dinner.  There was riding, driving,—­anything that the heat permitted.  A second bath, late in the afternoon, was indulged in when it was very hot.  The afternoon bathing party generally drove down in a lineika, a sort of long jaunting-car with a central bench, not too wide, on which the passengers sit back to back, their feet resting on a narrow footboard which curves over the wheels as a shield.  This lineika had also cross-seats at each end, and with judicious packing could be made to hold sixteen persons.  As it was upholstered in leather and had no springs, there was some art in keeping one’s seat when the three horses were going at full speed over the uneven forest road.

After breakfast I sometimes sat under the trees with the countess, and helped her sew on baby Ivan’s clothes, for the pleasure of her conversation.  Nothing could be more fascinating.  This beautiful woman has not rusted during her long residence in the country.  There are few better informed women than she, few better women of business, few women who are so clever and practical.

One day, as I was sitting, armed with thimble and needle, waiting for her, the count discovered a hole in his pocket, and asked his niece to mend it for him.  She had not her implements.  I volunteered,—­to do the mending, not to lend the wherewithal.  The pocket was of black silk, my thread of white cotton, but that was of no consequence.  I seated myself comfortably on the sand, and speedily discovered not one hole, but a row of holes such as wear along the seams of pockets.  The count was greatly annoyed at the trouble he was giving me, protested as I began on each new hole, and was very restless.  I was finally obliged to speak.