"Who are you that address me?" Then the answer came: "An unbaptized soul--Liuba; baptize me before it is too late, and save me!" And the man delayed no longer, but made the sign of the Cross and said, "I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen." Then at the words the soul of Liuba rejoiced with a great joy, and departed, whither I know not; but this is certain, that it wandered no longer wailing over land and sea, for it was henceforth at rest for ever, and, by Divine mercy, in possession of that sweet privilege which for a while had been lost to it. And the father knew not that he had baptized his own child's soul; but he shall know it one day, perhaps, when those who are pure in spirit shall see God. CHAPTER XI A WITCH! A WITCH! In this year of grace, close to the end of the nineteenth century, many of the villages in the Tsar's dominions are almost up to date in the science of cholera-fighting, thanks to the energy of the Zemstvo, which is a species of County Council. They set apart, some of them, a hut or house as a hospital for suspicious cases; the villagers occasionally boil their drinking water; they drink their _vodka_--well, perhaps the merest trifle more discreetly, in times of scare, than in the piping days of health and security. I would not go so far as to say that they waste much water in personal ablutions, because I wish my readers to take me seriously; and as for the drainage and sanitation of the villages, there is none from end to end of the realm. Nevertheless, matters are very much more satisfactory now than was the case forty or fifty years ago; when, at the appearance of the terrible scourge of cholera, most of the inhabitants at once gave themselves up for lost, and, resolving to make the most of the short time remaining to them for indulgence in the pleasures of terrestrial existence, drank themselves into alcoholic coma every day, until the disease fastened itself upon their _vodka_-sodden bodies, and carried them away where no _vodka_ is to be had for love or money. Tirnova, in the government of Vologda, was one of the villages most sorely attacked by the cholera-fiend during the outbreak of 1861.