NTO THIS MAGAZINE ARE GATHERED LANDS STORIES OF ADVENTURE AND LOVE STORIES, TALES OF WAR AND TALES OF PEACE, STORIES OF TOWN LIFE AND STORIES OF COUNTRY LIFE, LEGENDS AND TRUE STORIES, MOUNTAIN YARNS AND SEA TALES, STORIES OF HEROES AND STORIES OF THE AVERAGE MAN, TALES OF THE SUPERNATURAL AND OF THE SUB-HUMAN;─ALL HAVING THIS IN COMMON, THAT THEY ARE INTENSELY INTERESTING. T HE PRESENT ISSUE IS THE SEVENΤΗ IN THE NOTABLE SERIES OF SPECIAL NUMBERS ILLUSTRATING THE FICTION OF DIFFERENT NATIONS, ABOUT HALF OF ITS CONTENTS BEING BY REPRESENTATIVE WRITERS OF RUSSIA. IN APRIL WILL APPEAR A SPECIAL ITALIAN NUMBER; IN MAY, STORIES OF SCOTLAND AND IRELAND; IN JUNE, A SPECIAL SCANDINAVIAN NUMBER, Which taught a life-long lesson to a loving child. OLGA MOROSOFF'S ESCAPE, "Stepniak" One of the most thrilling in the annals of unhappy Russia. THE GREAT "JOURNAL" BEAT, Rhodes MacKnight The story of a man who died, if he did not live, a journalist. ALBA, Emma Rebekah Rice A bride who deserved her husband. THE CAPTAIN'S YOUNGEST, One of the heroes who "should have died hereafter." POPE PIFTINE, A schemer who was circumvented. AT LONE MOUND STATION, A story of love, music, and heroism. IVAN THE FOOL, The exponent of a great theory. Frances Hodgson Burnett Alexander Pothey Tom P. Morgan Count Lyeff N. Tolstoi A STUDY IN CRIMSON, Aug. Ledyard Smith Which almost drove the student crazy. THE CRACK Shot, Alexander Pouchkine The record of a vengeance which was never consummated. A TALE OF A BROOM, Caroline A. Creevey And of a girl who did not know how to use it. "WHISTLING WILL," Wayn Miner He found whistling, for once, a useful accomplishment. A RUSSIAN SEWING-WOMAN, Anonymous A mysterious but most lovable seamstress. HENRY ST. CLAIR, A young man who seems to have had a bad time. THE MARBLE "LIBERTY," The history of a beautiful but undisciplined woman. MISS CARMEN'S LAST CHARITY, Not really the last, however. Entered at New York Post-Office as Second-Class Mail Matter. 25 cents a Number; $2.50 a Year. John G. Whittier Anonymous Clyde Fitch ROYAL DUTCH COCOA. PURE-SOLUBLE-DELICIOUS. COMPARISON PROVES SUPERIORITY. TRY IT. Free Trial Sample on receipt of address by * FORTY · COMPLETE STORIES * BY • Rudyard Kipling, Alphonse Daudet, Robert Louis StevenSON, FROM EARLY NUMBERS OF “ROMANCE." A book of more than 300 pages, handsomely bound in cloth, with an illuminated outside paper cover. PRICE, POSTPAID, ONLY 75 CENTS. ROMANCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, This touching revelation of a most creditable weakness in a great man, though it is hardly in consonance with our view of the Russian character, is the last sketch written by Ivan Tourgueneff. It was translated for the New York Tribune. THE QUAIL. I was about ten years of age when what I am about to relate occurred. It was summer time. In those days I lived with my father on a farm in Southern Russia. Around us for a distance of many versts the steppe extended in every direction. No forest, no stream could be found in the neighboring country; only shallow ravines, covered by brushwood and looking like immense green snakes, here and there made their way through the otherwise unbroken surface of the plains. Tiny rivulets flowed at the bottom of these ravines; in places to which wellbeaten foot-paths generally led you could see, very near the top of the bank, small springs of limpid water, like tears, issue from the ground, and on their edges in the damp clay the tracks of numberless birds and other small animals. Man and beast alike need fresh, pure water. My father was passionately fond of hunting. Every moment he could spare from his work-provided the weather was fine-would see him take down his rifle, strap his pouch about his waist, whistle for his old dog Tresor, and start to hunt quail or partridge. Hare he thought little of; fit only, he would say with an air of contempt, to make a hunter run. These and snipes which came in the autumn were all the game found in the neighborhood. But quails and partridges were quite numerous; especially the latter. In following the banks of the ravines you would encounter at every step little hollows in that dry ground where they love to squat. Old 1 Tresor would then come to a sudden stop, his tail wagging furiously, and his forehead gathering in wrinkles, while my father, pale with excitement, would cautiously raise the hammer of his gun. At times, to my great joy, I would be permitted to accompany him. I used to tuck the legs of my trousers into the tops of my boots, hang my little flask over my shoulders, and, so equipped, would imagine myself a true sportsman. Though perspiration might cover me from head to foot, and gravel and dust enter my shoes, I never felt the least fatigued, and never in a single instance allowed myself to drop behind. At each report of the gun, and as soon as the bird fell, I bounded forward with a joyous shout-I felt so happy! The wounded quail might struggle, flap its wings, sometimes on the ground, at other times in Tresor's mouth, its blood flow-I only became enthusiastic; I never felt the least sentiment of pity! What wouldn't I have given to be able to fire a gun myself, to kill quails and partridges with my own hand! But my father had repeatedly explained to me that I was not to have a gun until I had reached the age of twelve, and that then I was to have a single-barreled gun, and that I would be allowed to shoot larks only. Large numbers of these were found near our house; on sunny days you could see them by the dozens in the clear sky, mounting higher, ever higher, with chirps resembling the tinkling of little bells. I looked upon them as my future spoil, and aimed at them with a stick which I carried over my shoulder like a gun. It is very easy to get close to them, when they hover with quivering wings perhaps five or six feet above the ground, before suddenly plunging into the grass. Sometimes, in the distance, on stubble fields or the green prairie, bustards could be seen. "Ah!" I would sigh; "to kill a big bird like that, and then die." I pointed them out to my father with my finger, but he would invariably answer that the bustard was a very shy bird, which would not permit anybody to get near |