At Tver, on the Volga, we halted for a few moments only. A little girl, four or five years old, barefoot and poorly clad, came before the car window begging. She bowed to us as if before a picture of the Virgin, crossed herself, touched her forehead, bent her head low, the hair falling over her face, and then, raising her head quickly, threw the hair back, and so amused the people. We threw her money, which she caught in her lap, crossed herself, blessed us, and asked for more. Three girls came up and joined her, going through the same motions, and got some coppers; and now a big boy made his appearance and put in his claims which proved unsuccessful. Then he turned upon the little girl, knocked her about for a minute, robbed her of her alms and fled. Boys are boys all the world over. I wish the cars would wait long enough for me to catch the little rascal, and recover the money for the girl. This is a city of nearly 30,000 inhabitants; its splendid domes and beautiful Greek temples, as seen in passing, speak of a city of unusual culture. Night came, according to the watch, but no darkness. Nine, ten, twelve, no signs of night, except that sunshine was gone. We wished to go to sleep. But here an unexpected difficulty arose. The two ladies declared it to be impossible for them to sleep in the cars, and therefore they did not wish the seats disturbed. We proposed to the conductor to arrange ours into berths, and let the others remain _in statu quo ante bellum_. He said they must be worked together: all or none. In vain we argued the case with these implacable women; and, when we found that our appeals to their pity and their sense of justice were alike without avail, we gave it up. Each of us four settled into a corner, and the two ladies soon gave certain infallible signs that they were sound asleep, and so they continued until long after the break of day. The truth was, and the conductor understood it, but we did not, there was an extra charge for making up the berths, and the ladies saved the money by sleeping perpendicularly. At midnight it was as light as noon often is with us. I could write at any hour, and these lines you are now reading are written at half-past two o’clock in the morning. At three, the east began to glare with the rising splendor of another day. The heavy clouds that skirt the horizon are robes of fire. Gorgeously the colors of the rainbow are painted one by one on these shifting scenes,—orange, red, purple, violet, I could count them all. How mean, tame, pale, all earthly pageants seem: the domes, the minarets, the golden-jewelled orbs and crowns of Czars, compared with this wasted wealth of glory that the King of kings scatters from his full hand with the rising of each day’s sun. I had never seen the sun rise in a latitude so far north. Its splendors charmed me out of all my hard feelings towards these sleeping Russian dames, who deprived me of a night’s repose and gave me such a magnificent morning.