thought to meet you like this, Parfen! Well,
well--good-bye--good-bye! God be with you!"

He turned and went downstairs.

"Lef Nicolaievitch!" cried Parfen, before he had reached the next
landing. "Have you got that cross you bought from the soldier with you?"

"Yes, I have," and the prince stopped again.

"Show it me, will you?"

A new fancy! The prince reflected, and then mounted the stairs once
more. He pulled out the cross without taking it off his neck.

"Give it to me," said Parfen.

"Why? do you--"

The prince would rather have kept this particular cross.

"I'll wear it; and you shall have mine. I'll take it off at once."

"You wish to exchange crosses? Very well, Parfen, if that's the case,
I'm glad enough--that makes us brothers, you know."

The prince took off his tin cross, Parfen his gold one, and the exchange
was made.

Parfen was silent. With sad surprise the prince observed that the look
of distrust, the bitter, ironical smile, had still not altogether left
his newly-adopted brother's face. At moments, at all events, it showed
itself but too plainly,

At last Rogojin took the prince's hand, and stood so for some moments,
as though he could not make up his mind. Then he drew him along,
murmuring almost inaudibly,

"Come!"

They stopped on the landing, and rang the bell at a door opposite to
Parfen's own lodging.

An old woman opened to them and bowed low to Parfen, who asked her some
questions hurriedly, but did not wait to hear her answer. He led the
prince on through several dark, cold-looking rooms, spotlessly clean,
with white covers over all the furniture.

Without the ceremony of knocking, Parfen entered a small apartment,
furnished like a drawing-room, but with a polished mahogany partition
dividing one half of it from what was probably a bedroom. In one corner
of this room sat an old woman in an arm-chair, close to the stove. She
did not look very old, and her face was a pleasant, round one; but she
was white-haired and, as one could detect at the first glance, quite
in her second childhood. She wore a black woollen dress, with a black
handkerchief round her neck and shoulders, and a white cap with black
ribbons. Her feet were raised on a footstool. Beside her sat another old
woman, also dressed in mourning, and silently knitting a stocking; this
was evidently a companion. They both looked as though they never broke
the silence. The first old woman, so soon as she saw Rogojin