in the unfortunate being he looked at. The features, worn and wasted as they were, seemed however, familiar to him, but not the colour, the matted hair, the stooping figure, or the downcast eye.

"Number 1887, come before his Excellency the Governor."

The unhappy man stepped forward-he remained silent. His age it was impossible to guess; he looked old; yet it might be doubtful whether years or misfortune had furrowed his cheeks, or bowed his person before its time.

"Prisoner, are you well treated in your illness? Speak: say if you want anything!"

"Thanks to your Excellency's regulations, I am better off than a prisoner can expect to be." The parties mutually regarded each other, as if struck by the sound of voice;

but it led to no

recognition on the part of my son so changed

----

in all external resemblance was the unfortunate Pavloff.

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"I will see what further I can do for you,"

as to the character and general reputation of the Governor of Nerchinsk.

"He is not a bad man," said one.

"There have been no knoutings under him," said another.

'Well," cried a third, "you forget the fate of Afanassi Yephremoff."

"Did not he deserve it for murdering three poor women, and robbing their cousin, the only honest merchant in Nerchinsk; and who narrowly escaped by having been detained in the country by the sudden thaw?"

"He could have got off under the last Governor," said the first speaker, "because he was the brother of his favourite Master of the Horse.'

"As great a rascal as himself," replied the other. "A rogue all round, as they say in Moscow."

"What is the Governor's name?" asked Pavloff.

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"Something German; I cannot pronounce their outlandish titles."

'Everybody here calls him either the Governor, or else Ivan Ivanich, which may be his patronymic or not, for aught that I know of German."

This was all the information Pavloff could extract from his keepers, and he was forced to be content with it. A secretary, Councillor of State, Bieloboradoff, whose duty it was to inspect the prisoners that might arrive during the Governor's absence, never came near them. It was, therefore, impossible to petition, or to remonstrate against the many abuses and the sufferings which these unfortunate people underwent.

At last, it appeared one morning that there was more than usual stir in the barrack-yard, and, in spite of the intense cold, workmen were seen shovelling away the dusky snow, or hewing that which had been accumulating, and suffered to condense like blocks of marble, so as to make a broad pathway up to the gate of the prison in which Pavloff was confined. Heads of fir-trees

cut off, were stuck in the snow to form a sort of avenue, while transparent posts of ice, connected by chains, were set up before the principal front of the edifice.

Rumours will penetrate even within prisonwalls, and the inmates became in some mysterious manner aware that the Governor was returned, and would visit the prison the next day.

CHAPTER XI.

Un petit coup de pied encore, et l'ancienne et méchante année

roule pour jamais dans l'abîme du temps.

HEINRICH HEINE.

Youth of the gloomy brow, no more shalt thou feast in my halls. Thou shalt not pursue my chase, my foes shall not fall by thy sword.

Lead me to the place of her rest, the cold winds lift her hair, her bowstring sounds in the blast-her arrow was broken in its fall!

Raise the praise of the Daughter of Sarno! Give her name to the winds of Heaven.

POETRY OF OSSIAN.

THE report, however, of the Governor's arrival on this occasion proved a false one. He was detained by circumstances-and it was full two months from that period ere he returned to Nerchinsk, from a tour of inquiry into various