whether owing to some peculiar smile on her face, or to the domestic
idea which the act suggested, seemed certainly very much struck, and
next day formally proposed. Maria laughed, and tossed her head, and
spoke a few good-natured words; and then, without either accepting
or rejecting him, hinted something about his youth, his want of
devotion to business, and his want of fortune. Ivan, a little warmly,
declared himself to be the best hunter in Yakoutsk, and hence the
most practically-experienced of any in the trade, and then gave the
sum-total of his possessions.

"Just one quarter of what good old Vorotinska left me!" replied the
prudent Maria.

"But if I liked," replied Ivan, "I could be the richest merchant in
Siberia."

"How?" asked Maria a little curiously, for the mere mention of wealth
was to her like powder to the war-horse.

"Being almost the only Russian who has lived among the Yakoutas, I
know the secret of getting furs cheaper and easier than any one else.
Beside, if I chose to take a long journey, I could find ivory in vast
heaps. A tradition is current of an ivory mine in the north, which an
old Yakouta told me to be truth."

"Very likely," said Maria, to whom the existence of the fossil ivory
of the mammoth in large masses was well known; "but the _promich
lenicks_--trading companies--have long since stripped them."

"Not this," cried Ivan; "it is a virgin mine. It is away, away in