"Has long been forgotten. How could I not love my old playmate and friend! Kolina--Kolina, listen to Ivan! Forget his love for the widow of Yakoutsk, and Ivan will stay in the plain of Vchivaya and die." "Kolina is very proud," whispered the girl, sitting down on a log near the fire, and speaking in a low tone; "and Kolina thinks yet that the friend of her father has forgotten himself. But if he be not wild, if the sufferings of the journey have not made him say that which is not, Kolina would be very happy." "Be plain, girl of Miouré--maiden of the Yakouta tribe! and play not with the heart of a man. Can Kolina take Ivan as her husband?" A frank and happy reply gave the Yakoutsk merchant all the satisfaction he could wish; and then followed several hours of those sweet and delightful explanations which never end between young lovers when first they have acknowledged their mutual affection. They had hitherto concealed so much, that there was much to tell; and Ivan and Kolina, who for nearly three years had lived together, with a bar between their deep but concealed affection, seemed to have no end of words. Ivan had begun to find his feelings change from the very hour Sakalar's daughter volunteered to accompany him, but it was only in the cave of New Siberia that his heart had been completely won. So short, and quiet, and sweet were the hours, that the time of rest passed by without the thought of sleep. Suddenly, however, they were roused to a sense of their situation, and leaving their wearied and exhausted companions still asleep, they moved with doubt and dread to the water's side. Life was now doubly dear to both, and their fancy painted the coming forth of an empty net as the termination of all hope. But the net came heavily and slowly to land. It was full of fish. They were on the well-stocked Vchivaya. More than three hundred fish, small and great, were drawn on shore; and then they recast the net. "Up, man and beast!" thundered Ivan, as, after selecting two dozen of the finest, he abandoned the rest to the dogs.