as though she had waked from a long sleep. The veterinary's wife
arrived--a thin, plain lady, with short hair and a peevish
expression. With her was her little Sasha, a boy of ten, small for
his age, blue-eyed, chubby, with dimples in his cheeks. And scarcely
had the boy walked into the yard when he ran after the cat, and at
once there was the sound of his gay, joyous laugh.

"Is that your puss, auntie?" he asked Olenka. "When she has little
ones, do give us a kitten. Mamma is awfully afraid of mice."

Olenka talked to him, and gave him tea. Her heart warmed and there
was a sweet ache in her bosom, as though the boy had been her own
child. And when he sat at the table in the evening, going over his
lessons, she looked at him with deep tenderness and pity as she
murmured to herself:

"You pretty pet! . . . my precious! . . . Such a fair little thing,
and so clever."

"'An island is a piece of land which is entirely surrounded by
water,'" he read aloud.

"An island is a piece of land," she repeated, and this was the first
opinion to which she gave utterance with positive conviction after
so many years of silence and dearth of ideas.

Now she had opinions of her own, and at supper she talked to Sasha's
parents, saying how difficult the lessons were at the high schools,
but that yet the high school was better than a commercial one, since
with a high-school education all careers were open to one, such as
being a doctor or an engineer.

Sasha began going to the high school. His mother departed to Harkov
to her sister's and did not return; his father used to go off every
day to inspect cattle, and would often be away from home for three
days together, and it seemed to Olenka as though Sasha was entirely
abandoned, that he was not wanted at home, that he was being starved,
and she carried him off to her lodge and gave him a little room
there.

And for six months Sasha had lived in the lodge with her. Every
morning Olenka came into his bedroom and found him fast asleep,
sleeping noiselessly with his hand under his cheek. She was sorry
to wake him.

"Sashenka," she would say mournfully, "get up, darling. It's time
for school."

He would get up, dress and say his prayers, and then sit down to
breakfast, drink three glasses of tea, and eat two large cracknels
and a half a buttered roll. All this time he was hardly awake and
a little ill-humoured in consequence.

"You don't quite know your fable, Sashenka," Olenka