Curse him--curse him!" They raised their heads and listened to the galloping feet with the patient, dumb despair which is the curse of the Slavonic race.

Some of them crept to their doors, and, looking up, saw that the castle windows were ablaze with light.

If Paul Howard Alexis was a plain English gentleman in London, he was also a great prince in his country, keeping up a princely state, enjoying the gilded solitude that belongs to the high-born.

His English education had educed a strict sense of discipline, and as in England, and, indeed, all through his life, so in Russia did he attempt to do his duty.
The carriage rattled up to the brilliantly lighted door, which stood open, and within, on either side of the broad entrance-hall, the servants stood to welcome their master.

A strange, picturesque, motley crew: the majordomo, in his black coat, and beside him the other house-servants--tall, upright fellows, in their bright livery.