o Prince Andrew, looked at him, and suddenly
with a solemn gesture raised his arm.

"He is my refuge! His will be done!" he exclaimed.

A group of bareheaded peasants was approaching across the meadow toward
the prince.

"Well, good-by!" said Prince Andrew, bending over to Alpatych. "You
must go away too, take away what you can and tell the serfs to go to the
Ryazan estate or to the one near Moscow."

Alpatych clung to Prince Andrew's leg and burst into sobs. Gently
disengaging himself, the prince spurred his horse and rode down the
avenue at a gallop.

The old man was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like a fly
impassive on the face of a loved one who is dead, tapping the last on
which he was making the bast shoe, and two little girls, running out
from the hot house carrying in their skirts plums they had plucked from
the trees there, came upon Prince Andrew. On seeing the young master,
the elder one with frightened look clutched her younger companion by the
hand and hid with her behind a birch tree, not stopping to pick up some
green plums they had dropped.

Prince Andrew turned away with startled haste, unwilling to let them
see that they had been observed. He was sorry for the pretty frightened
little girl, was afraid of looking at her, and yet felt an irresistible
desire to do so. A new sensation of comfort and relief came over him
when, seeing these girls, he realized the existence of other human
interests entirely aloof from his own and just as legitimate as those
that occupied him. Evidently these girls passionately desired one
thing--to carry away and eat those green plums without being caught--and
Prince Andrew shared their wish for the success of their enterprise. He
could not resist looking at them once more. Believing their danger past,
they sprang from their ambush and, chirruping something in their shrill
little voices and holding up their skirts, their bare little sunburned
feet scampered merrily and quickly across the meadow grass.

Prince Andrew was somewhat refreshed by having ridden off the dusty
highroad along which the troops were moving. But not far from Bald Hills
he again came out on the road and overtook his regiment at its halting
place by the dam of a small pond. It was past one o'clock. The sun,
a red ball through the dust, burned and scorched his back intolerably
through his black coat. The dust always hung motionless above the buzz
of talk that came from the resting troops.