PRETTY
MAR-
USCHKA

emerald moss-tuft, now making a scarlet lily flame
against the dusk of the forest glades behind.
Helena was dressed by her mother in gay colours
for Sunday and Feast-day, but poor little Mar-
suchka had only a dingy grey gown, cast off by
her sister. Helena wore black shoes with silver
buckles, but pretty Maruschka clattered up the
churchyard path in wooden clogs. Helena wore
a false gold chain of great links round her neck,
but her half-sister had only a turquoise-coloured
ribbon and a little silver cross with a crystal in
it—that was her only ornament—and that had been
given her by a lady whom she had guided into the
road, when she had lost her way in the forest.

As the mother and the two girls went to church
on Sundays, the lads were all in the yard hanging
about the tombstones; and the old woman heard
them whisper, ‘There is pretty Maruschka;’ ‘but
never once did they say, ‘See pretty Helena.’ So
she was angry, and hated the golden-haired, blue-
eyed maiden. At home she made her do all the
hard work—scrub the floors, cook the victuals,
mend the clothes—whilst Helena stood all day
before her glass, combing her hair and adorning
herself with trinkets, and wishing it were Sunday
that she might flare before the eyes of the young
men in the churchyard.

Helena and her mother did all that lay in their
power to make the little girl’s life miserable. They
scolded her, they beat her, they devised schemes
of annoyance for her, but never could they ruffle
the sweet temper of Maruschka.

One day, in the depth of winter, Helena cried out,
‘Ah, me! would that I had a bunch of violets in
my bosom to-morrow, when I goto church. Run,
Maruschka, run into the forest and pluck them for
me, that I may have them to smell at whilst the
priest gives us his sermon.’

‘Oh, ay, sister!’ answered Maruschka,. ‘who ever