ottom
drawer of which had been dedicated to the use of his most precious toys.
That was empty, now. He must not break the spell by opening it. So, with
a smile that was an inaudible sigh, he passed on to his mother's
bedroom: that room in which, on a New Year's night now thirty-eight
years gone by, a lonely wife had prayed God for the boon of motherhood.

The very shrine before which Sophia had knelt, bracket, ikon, and brass
candlestick, still hung on the far wall, beside the bed. Ivan's eyes
paused at it, and he was seized by the impulse to speak to his mother
from that spot. Repressing himself, however, he sat down beside a table
on which he leaned an elbow, supporting his head upon his hand.
Presently his eyes drooped shut. The unwonted sweetness of the air, the
long, twining sun-shadows of late afternoon, the intense, country
stillness, all of them helped the oppression of memory, till gradually
he began to feel himself enwrapped in a shimmering, elusive mist of
half-real dreams.

He perceived that the windows were fast-shut, double-paned, their cracks
stuffed with the customary winter moss. Still the raving wind came
through: a freezing breath. Daylight was gone. In its place--was this
some pale moonbeam straying through the uncurtained window, to mingle
its ghostly light with the flaring yellow flame of the guttering
candle?--And that figure that crouched, dumbly, on the floor, beneath
the protective ikon? Who was she?--And who the other two who now
resolved themselves out of the creeping mist and glided towards the
sleeping woman?--a tall and radiant personage, leading by the hand a
little child?--It seemed not strange:--neither new nor amazing. Ivan
knew the gentle lady who had prayed: knew also the Majestic One who
brought the answer to that piteous prayer. But the child--the
shadow-shape whose tiny hand was clasped in that of the Divine
Woman?--Ah, _that_--

Ivan shuddered, started, and, by a violent effort, flung off the
clinging vision. Old Sosha, standing in the doorway, was saying, in his
gentle, plaintive voice:

"The tea, your Excellency!--It is as you commanded.--You have journeyed
far and waited long!"

"_Waited!_--I commanded tea in an hour. It can't be five."

"Pardon, your Excellency, the bells have rung six."

Ivan sprang to his feet with an exclamation. Then, suddenly, he swayed,
caught himself, by means of the table, and sank back in his chair with a
suppressed groan. The old servitor r