Next comes a pie made of fish and raisins. It seems rather queer to us to have these two things cooked together, but our Russian cousins think it is very good. And now a roast lamb is served with salted cucumbers, followed by buckwheat pudding, and ices, for dessert. Last, but not least, the samovar is set on the table, and cup after cup of delicious tea is drunk by the family. I forgot to tell you that sour cream was served with the soup, and papa and mamma drank some cordial while they ate of the zakushka. This was to encourage their appetites still more. But I certainly can't see what need there was. They ate and ate, and drank tea and still more tea, till it seemed as if they would be made ill. It is said that Russians are among the largest eaters in the world. If this be so, I do not wonder that so many of them grow stout. This makes me think of a story I read the other day. Perhaps you would like to hear it. There was a certain soldier in Russia who ate so much that his friends used to lay wagers with strangers as to the quantity he could eat at a single time. His friends generally won, too. It happened one day that the colonel of the regiment made a large wager that the man could eat a whole sheep at one meal. The cook prepared the sheep in many ways, in order to encourage the man's appetite. Of one part he made a pie, of another a stew, of still another a hash, and so on. The man swallowed one preparation after another until the sheep was almost eaten, when he looked up and said, "If you give me so much zakushka, I am afraid I will not be able to eat the sheep when it is brought in." You understand the joke, of course, when you remember that the zakushka is made of the side dishes one eats before the regular meal is begun. Of course the colonel won his bet. Besides the cabbage soup, there are still others of which the Russians are very fond. One of these is made with cold beer with pieces of cucumber, meat, and red herrings floating about in it, as well as bits of ice. Still another is made of a fish called the sterlet, which is found only in the Volga, the principal river of Russia. Then there are trout soup, perch soup, and several other kinds of which you probably never heard. But now let us leave the dinner-table and go out into Petrovna's yard. At one end of it there is a high platform. It is built at least twenty feet above the ground. Steps lead up to it on one side, while from the other a long slant reaches down to a frozen pond below. This slant looks as though it were solid shining ice. But underneath there are stout boards to keep it smooth and unbending. They are fastened to a very strong framework. Now guess, if you please, why this ice hill, as it is called, was made in Petrovna's back yard. To amuse her and her little brother, of course.