Father Cyril was greatly interested in this heretical household—the well-read, intelligent farmer, the manly yet boyish son, and his pretty, sweet-tempered little girl. The sad, broken-hearted Paraska, mourning for her children, also aroused his deepest sympathy. The farmstead was a model to the village. Whenever Father Cyril passed it, and saw the clean fold-yard, the comfortable house, with its shining windows, and the flowers blossoming round it, he sighed to think he could not point it out as a pattern to his idle and drunken parishioners without giving great offence to the Orthodox people. He could not even go as often as he would like to visit Alexis Ivanoff. Michael's school for the Stundist children prospered; he proved to be a very good teacher. There was no doubt he was doing better than the village schoolmistress, who took no real interest in her work. The Stundist children, who were obliged to pass through Knishi to reach Ostron were often assailed with threats and bad language and occasionally with missiles from the Orthodox children. For the spirit of persecution is easily aroused, but very difficult to suppress. The summer was nearly over, and the harvest was gathered in, an abundant harvest, which filled every barn to overflowing. Michael gave himself and his little school a holiday that they might spend a whole day in the forest, which lay to the east of Ostron. Paraska made a large supply of pasties, some of which were filled with boiled cabbage, and others with fruit; and she baked a quantity of bread and cakes; for there were quite a dozen children to go besides Michael and Velia, and Sergius and Marfa, who came as guests, being too old and too busy to attend the school. They kept this expedition a profound secret, lest the Orthodox children should follow to the forest and spoil their holiday. There was no road, only a foot track to the forest; and between it and the steppe lay a deep ravine, crossed by a rude bridge of the trunk of a tree, which had fallen across the chasm generations ago. Some of the oldest trees in it had been left untouched for centuries, and as the timber belonged to the Government, it was left to grow very wild and untrimmed, though the village was often in dire need of fuel. There was a great tangle of brushwood; and it had the reputation of being haunted in some parts of its dark and moist thickets. Only the most daring spirits among the Knishi boys would venture into its glades. But the Stundist children were at home there. For during the last few years, many a secret meeting for worship had been held in a deserted hut some distance within it.