llections, and shone as of old.

"But how greatly you have changed!" she went on. "You are quite grown-up
now. And I-I-well, what do you think of me?"

"I should never have known you," I replied, despite the fact that at the
moment I was thinking that I should have known her anywhere and always.

"Why? Am I grown so ugly?" she inquired with a movement of her head.

"Oh, no, decidedly not!" I hastened to reply. "But you have grown taller
and older. As for being uglier, why, you are even--

"Yes, yes; never mind. Do you remember our dances and games, and St.
Jerome, and Madame Dorat?" (As a matter of fact, I could not recollect
any Madame Dorat, but saw that Sonetchka was being led away by the joy
of her childish recollections, and mixing them up a little). "Ah! what
a lovely time it was!" she went on--and once more there shone before me
the same eyes and smile as I had always carried in my memory. While she
had been speaking, I had been thinking over my position at the present
moment, and had come to the conclusion that I was in love with her. The
instant, however, that I arrived at that result my careless, happy mood
vanished, a mist seemed to arise before me which concealed even her eyes
and smile, and, blushing hotly, I became tongue-tied and ill-at-ease.

"But times are different now," she went on with a sigh and a little
lifting of her eyebrows. "Everything seems worse than it used to be, and
ourselves too. Is it not so, Nicolas?"

I could return her no answer, but sat silently looking at her.

"Where are those Iwins and Kornakoffs now? Do you remember them?"
she continued, looking, I think, with some curiosity at my blushing,
downcast countenance. "What splendid times we used to have!"

Still I could not answer her.

The next moment, I was relieved from this awkward position by the entry
of old Madame Valakhin into the room. Rising, I bowed, and straightway
recovered my faculty of speech. On the other hand, an extraordinary
change now took place in Sonetchka. All her gaiety and bonhomie
disappeared, her smile became quite a different one, and, except for the
point of her shortness of stature, she became just the lady from abroad
whom I had expected to find in her. Yet for this change there was no
apparent reason, since her mother smiled every whit as pleasantly, and
expressed in her every movement just the same benignity, as of old.
Seating herself in her arm-chair, the old lady signed to me to come
and s