a-head to secure relays of horses. M. de
Sardanapalasoff, of the Empress's regiment
of cuirassiers of the guard, took a magnificent
apartment for her in the Italianskaïa Oulitza;
she had a calèche, a brougham, a country-
house—the very model of a Swiss châlet in
the islands -- saddle horses, a gondola with a
velvet awning, white satin cushions, and a
Persian carpet; a box at the Balschoï theatre,
and one at the French house; a lady's maid,
a chasseur, a maltre d'hotel, a Danish dog
nearly as large as a donkey, —every luxury,
in fact. M. de Sardanapalasoff gave some
magnificent champagne banquets at her
apartments. La Bérésina, as the Muscovite-
Parisienne was called, was the reigning beauty
of the demi-monde of St. Petersburg. A
prince of the imperial blood positively came
to one of the Bérésina's petit soupers, and
deigned to express his opinion that she was
charming.

M. de Sardanapalasoff's mamma was the
Princess Zenobiaschkin, and he was the most
dutiful of sons; so, when she signified to
him her maternal commands that he should
obtain the imperial permission to travel for
two years, and escort her to Paris, Italy, and
the baths of Hombourg, he hastened to comply
with her mandates in the most filial
manner. Some unjust constructions were of
course put on this alacrity. Some envious
persons declared that the emperor himself
had, through the medium of the Princess
Zenobiaschkin, offered the alternative of
foreign travel or the Caucasus to the young
guardsman; an of course unfounded report
having got abroad that M. de Sardanapalasoff
while on duty at the palace of Tsarski-Selo,
had been kicked in full uniform by a
vindictive major of dragoons: the cause of the
humiliating correction being alleged to be
the detection of the Bérésina's noble friend
in the act of cheating at écarté. Be it as it
may, M. de Sardanapalasoff was desolated to
part with the Bérésina, but he did it; it
must have affected him greatly to be obliged
to sell off the whole of his (or her) splendid
furniture -- nay, as much of her own private
jewellery as he could, by fraud or force, lay
his hands upon. So much did it affect him,
in fact, that he went off with the whole of the
proceeds of the sale in his pocket, and left
the Bérésina without a friend in the world,
and with scarcely a hundred roubles in her
pocket.

Josephine (she had done with the name of
the Bérésina now) did not float down that
golden tide that runs over the sands of Shame
in that great, salt, fathomless sea of tears, on
which you shall descry no land on lee-bow, or
weather-bow, save the headlands of Death.
With a stern and strong determination to sin
no more, she went to Moscow, where she
had some acquaintances, if not friends. She
was clever with her needle. She could
embroider; she could make bonnets; she had
both taste and talent. It was not long before
she obtained employment in the shop of
one of the most famous French milliners in
Moscow.

For her misery, she was still very beautiful.
I have said that the fashionable milliners of
Moscow are dealers in other wares than
millinery. The buyers of those goods are the
dissolute young nobles of the guard. Josephine
might very soon have had another splendid
suite of apartments, another chasseur, another
lady's maid, had she so pleased; but the poor
girl was sick of it, and was determined to be a
milliner's workwoman all her life, rather than
be a golden toy to be tossed aside when its
attraction had worn out. She refused solicitation
after solicitation, offer after offer from
the snuffy old French hag (there is nothing
so bad as a bad French woman), into whose
employ she had entered. This unprotected,
outraged girl declared that she would no longer
remain in her service. She would go, she
said, that very instant, and rose to leave the
work-room. The woman put out her arm
to prevent her passing the threshold, and
Josephine naturally pushed it away. This
was all the milliner wanted.

"Very well, very well! " she said, "bear
witness, mesdemoiselles all, this person, my
servant —my SERVANT, mind -- has been
guilty of insubordination and rebellion
towards me, her mistress. We shall see, we
shall see!"

She went that day and lodged a complaint
against her workwoman at the police-office.
The girl was a Russian subject, and the
daughter of a Russian subject, and there was
no help for her on this side of Heaven. She
was arrested that afternoon, and carried to the
Siège, her mistress accompanying her. There,
in the bureau, she was asked certain questions,
the milliner signed a paper and paid
certain monies to the aide-major of police, and
Josephine was led away by two of the grey-
coats.

That same night, very late, a French hair-
dresser settled in Moscow, who was crossing
the Smith's Bridge on his way home, was
fortunate enough to rescue a woman; who,
without bonnet or shawl, was standing on the
parapet of the bridge, and was just about to
cast herself into the Moskva. There was,
luckily, no Boutotsnik, or watchman, near, or
it would have fared ill with both preserver
and preserved. The kindly barber took this
miserable creature, who could do nothing but
sob and wail, and ejaculate, "O Mother,
Mother!"— he took her to his home, and
delivering her to his womankind, enjoined them
to treat her with every care and solicitude.
They told him, the next morning, that when
they came to undress her, they had found her
from the shoulder to the waist one mass of
bloody wheals. The police had simply done
their infamous duty. The milliner, her
mistress, had a perfect right to order her to be
flogged; she had paid for the flogging; and
the police had nothing further to do, save to