"I may not understand French; but I comprehend that you have chosen to make sport of me

"Not at all, Captain Lutschkoff-nay, I even pity you."

"Don't talk to me of your pity, I beg!" he answered furiously, "I would like to be spared that!"

"Captain Lutschkoff!"

"Oh, don't try those princess airs! It's a waste of trouble. You won't frighten me with them."

Marja retreated a few steps, turned swiftly, and walked away.

"Shan't I send your friend, your sentimental shepherd, to you?" Lutschkoff called after her. He had completely lost his self-control. this friend, who

"Isn't it

Marja did not answer; hastily, yet joyously, she hurried homeward. Spite of her alarm and excitement she felt relieved. It seemed as if she had just waked from a troubled dream, emerged from a dark room into the fresh, sunny air.

Lutschkoff glared around him as if bereft of his senses, broke a young tree in his speechless rage, swung nimself on his horse, drove the spurs furiously into its flanks, and abused the luckless animal so pitilessly that, after going eight versts in fifteen minutes, it almos. died during the night.

Kister waited vainly for Lutschkoff until midnight. Early the next morning he went to his quarters, but the servant said that his master was still asleep and had ordered him to admit no one. "Not even me?"

"Not even you."

Kister, tortured by anxiety, walked up and down the street several times and then went home.

His servant handed him a letter. "From whom?"

"From the Perekatoffs."

The cornet's hands trembled. "They sent their compliments to you and requested an answer. Shall I give the messenger a dram of brandy?"

Kister slowly opened the note and read the following lines:

"Dear, kind Fedor Fedorovitsch! I

must speak to you-I positively must. Come to us to-day, if possible. Don't refuse my request; I entreat you in the name of our old friendship. If you knew-but you will learn all. Hoping to see you soon, Marja.

"P.S. You must come to-day without fail."

"Shall I give the messenger a dram of brandy?"

Kister stared wonderingly at his servant and, without answering, went out of the room.

"My master said I was to give you a dram, and at the same time I'll take one myself," remarked the man.

CHAPTER VIII.

When Kister entered the drawingroom Marja rushed towards him with such a radiant, grateful face, and pressed his hand so warmly that the young officer's heart swelled with joy. Yet she instantly left the room without saying a word.

Perekatoff was sitting on the sofa, playing patience. The conversation began and the host, with his customary tact, had scarcely introduced the subject of his dog, and commenced to boast of the animal's talents, when Marja again entered. She had put on a gay silk sash-remembering that Kister had once said it was particularly becoming to her.

Soon after Nenila came in; she received her guest to-day with special cordiality.

At dinner they all laughed and jested with perfect unconstraint; even Perekatoff grew animated and related one of the gayest incidents of his youth. While doing so, however, like the ostrich, he cautiously kept his head averted from his wife.

"We will take a walk," Marja said to Kister after dinner, in the coaxing tone which renders opposition impossible. "I must talk with you about something very, very important," she added with gracious solemnity, as she drew on her Swedish gloves. "Will you go with us, mamma?"

"No," replied Nenila.

"But we're not going into the park." "Where do you mean to walk?" "To the little grove by the long meadow."

"Then take Tanjuscha."

"Tanjuscha! Tanjuscha!" called Marja, in her clear voice, gliding out of the room as lightly as a bird.

Fifteen minutes after Marja and Kister were on their way to the long meadow. As they passed the pasture where the cattle were grazing, the young girl fed her pet cow with bread, stroked her head, and bade Kister pat her gently on the back.

Marja was in an unusually lively mood and talked continually. Kister entered into all she said with p'easure, though he waited with great impatience for the communications she was to make. Tanjuscha followed the pair at a respectful distance, but from time to time cast a sly glance at her young mistress.

catesse. I say it to you in French; for surely you understand French."

Kister understood French, but he did not understand Marja.

"Oh, pluck that flower for me the one yonder-how beautiful!"

Marja gazed at it with great pleasure. Suddenly she hastily drew her hand from his arm, and with a timid smile cautiously began to pull the slender stem through the button hole of his overcoat. While thus employed, her dainty fingers almost touched uis lips. Kister's eyes rested on the fingers, then on her face. Marja bent her little head as if to say: "You may."

Kister stooped and kissed her fingertips.

"Day before yesterday-do you remember?"

Marja's eyes wandered over the scene, then she turned abruptly to

"Do you know why I brought you here?"

"No."

"No! Why don't you mention your friend Lutschkoff to-day? Formerly you could never weary of praising him."

Kister gazed silently into vacancy. "Do you know," Marja continued with effort, "that I had-an appointment-here with him-yesterday?" "I knew that," he replied, in a hollow tone.

"You knew it! Ah! Now I understand why day before yesterday, you Captain Lutschkoff evidently hastened to boast of his conquest." Kister tried to answer.

"Don't speak, don't make any reply. I know he is your friend, you might be capable of defending him. You knew. Fedor, that I Then why didn't you keep me from committing such a folly?

me? And you don't laugh at a girl who grants an interview to one man one day, and the next talks to another as-as I. am now talking to you-you won't make sport of me, will you?"

Her face glowed; she held his right hand firmly clasped in both her own.

springs of Manchu government shows a gradual tendency to disappear.

But it must not be imagined that all imperial decrees are issued for publication. Anything of a confidential nature, whether in the form of a decree, rescript, or memorial, is "kept inside;" and there is no capital in the world where it is more difficult to purchase secret documents than Peking. But

the general weal, are none the less

From Longman's Magazine THE "PEKING GAZETTE" AND CHINESE POSTING.

Previous to the introduction under European auspices of the Chinese newspapers now daily circulated from Hong Kong and Shanghai, and of more recent years also, to a lesser extent, from Tientsin and Hankow, there was hardly any dissimination of news throughout the empire, except that conveyed by the Peking Gazette, or, as the Chinese call it the Metropolitan Reporter (King-pao). For many years past English translations of the more important documents issued to and published by the Peking Gazette office have been furnished, either in full or in the form of a digest, according to their weight and interest, by the leading Shanghai newspaper; and, moreover, all the native Shanghai newspapers, and some of the others, publish daily, in extenso, the original Chinese versions: in the case of interesting imperial decrees or very important memorials from the Provinces, the chief organs of the Chinese press even obtain their information by telegraph from Peking. And thus it happens that the work of centralization, which has in every sense largely developed since the European envoys settled in Peking thirty-five years ago, has been considerably facilitated and brought home to the Chinese mind; both foreigners and natives receive rapid, precise, and regular information of what goes on in the capital, and the mystery which. until a generation ago, enveloped the

of the viceroys and provincial governors, from whose offices it is often not difficult to obtain, by purchase, copies of interesting documents. The local gentry, who like to be informed upon everything which concerns the interests of their caste in general and of their relatives holding office in particular, usually have a clerk or two in their pay, and these clerks are not slow to disCover that some foreigners have similar and more liberally bestowed funds at hand for a like purpose. Besides this, Chinese officials themselves sometimes find it advantageous to obtain the publication in the native press of confidential documents; and, as this native press would soon be strangled to death without its European protection, they can easily disavow all responsibility by referring their censorious superiors to the foreign editor as the responsible person. Over and over again have the viceregal governments remonstrated with the consuls at Shanghai, and endeavored to institute a sort of press inquisition; but at last they have come to perceive, on the one hand, that all such attempts are vain, and, on the other, that "what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander"-unpleasant publicity in one instance being compensated by desirable notoriety in another. Thus it comes that the Shen Pao, or Shanghai Reporter, has now become an acceptable organ even at court, besides circulating all over the empire, and, to a less extent, throughout Corea, Japan, Annam, Siam. and Burma; and it is as well-managed an organ as any European daily newspaper.