With a glance at the purveyor of proverbs the old man assented by remarking: "Yes, true it is that the common folk are cramped." Whereafter he thrust a pinch of snuff into his nostrils, and threw back his head in anticipation of the sneeze which failed to come. At length, drawing a deep breath through his parted lips, he said as he measured the peasant again with his eyes: "My friend, you are of a sort calculated to last." In answer the peasant nodded. "SOME day," he remarked, "we shall get what we want." In front of us now, was Kazan, with the pinnacles of its churches and mosques piercing the blue sky, and looking like garlands of exotic blooms. Around them lay the grey wall of the Kremlin, and above them soared the grim Tower of Sumbek. Here one and all were due to disembark. I glanced towards the stern once more. The dark-browed woman was breaking off morsels from a wheaten scone that was lying in her lap, and saying as she did so: "Presently we will have a cup of tea, and then keep together as far as Christopol." In response the young fellow edged nearer to her, and thoughtfully eyed the large hands which, though inured to hard work, could also be very gentle. "I have been trodden upon," he said. "Trodden upon by whom?" "By all. And I am afraid of them." "Why so?" "Because I am." Breathing upon a morsel of the scone, the woman offered it him with the quiet words: "You have had much to bear. Now, shall I tell you my history, or shall we first have tea?" * * * * * On the bank there was now to be seen the frontage of the gay, wealthy suburb of Uslon, with its brightly-dressed, rainbow-tinted women and girls tripping through the streets, and the water of its foaming river sparkling hotly, yet dimly, in the sunlight. It was a scene like a scene beheld in a vision. A WOMAN The wind is scudding over the steppe, and beating upon the rampart of the Caucasian heights until their backbone seems to be bellying like a huge sail, and the earth to be whirling and whizzing through unfathomable depths of blue, and leaving behind it a rack of wind-torn clouds which, as their shadows glide over the surface of the land, seem ever to be striving to keep in touch with the onrush of the gale, and, failing to maintain the effort, dissolving in tears and despondency.