buried in cherry orchards, peeping alluringly at the street. Sometimes
he betook himself to the more aristocratic streets, in the old Kief of
to-day, where dwelt Little Russian and Polish nobles, and where houses
were built in more fanciful style. Once, as he was gaping along, an
old-fashioned carriage belonging to some Polish noble almost drove
over him; and the heavily moustached coachman, who sat on the box,
gave him a smart cut with his whip. The young student fired up; with
thoughtless daring he seized the hind-wheel with his powerful hands
and stopped the carriage. But the coachman, fearing a drubbing, lashed
his horses; they sprang forward, and Andrii, succeeding happily in
freeing his hands, was flung full length on the ground with his face
flat in the mud. The most ringing and harmonious of laughs resounded
above him. He raised his eyes and saw, standing at a window, a beauty
such as he had never beheld in all his life, black-eyed, and with skin
white as snow illumined by the dawning flush of the sun. She was
laughing heartily, and her laugh enhanced her dazzling loveliness.
Taken aback he gazed at her in confusion, abstractedly wiping the mud
from his face, by which means it became still further smeared. Who
could this beauty be? He sought to find out from the servants, who, in
rich liveries, stood at the gate in a crowd surrounding a young
guitar-player; but they only laughed when they saw his besmeared face
and deigned him no reply. At length he learned that she was the
daughter of the Waiwode of Koven, who had come thither for a time. The
following night, with the daring characteristic of the student, he
crept through the palings into the garden and climbed a tree which
spread its branches upon the very roof of the house. From the tree he
gained the roof, and made his way down the chimney straight into the
bedroom of the beauty, who at that moment was seated before a lamp,
engaged in removing the costly earrings from her ears. The beautiful
Pole was so alarmed on suddenly beholding an unknown man that she