in that of the fourteenth of December. . . . that's what you meant to say."

"In that case, what do you complain of now?" almost broke from my lips. . . . but I restrained myself. "Do you consider that the result of the fourteenth of December was such as to encourage other such attempts?" I said aloud.

Musa frowned. "It is no good talking to you about it," was what I read in her downcast face.

"Is Paramon Semyonitch very seriously compromised?" I ventured to ask her. Musa made no reply. . . . A hungry, savage mewing was heard from the attic.

Musa started. "Ah, it is a good thing Nikander Vavilitch did not see all this!" she moaned almost despairingly. "He did not see how violently in the night they seized his benefactor, our benefactor--maybe, the best and truest man in the whole world,--he did not see how they treated that noble man at his age, how rudely they addressed him. . . . how they threatened him, and the threats they used to him!--only because he was a working man! That young officer, too, was no doubt just such an unprincipled, heartless wretch as I have known in my life. . . ."

Musa's voice broke. She was quivering all over like a leaf.

Her long-suppressed indignation broke out at last; old memories stirred up, brought to