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Sonia crossed the room with a glass in her hand. Natacha glanced round at her and again fixed her eyes on the streak of light. She had the strange feeling of having once before gone through the same experience–sat in the same place, surrounded by the same details, and watching Sonia pass carrying a tumbler. “Yes, it was exactly the same,” she thought.

“Sonia, what is this tune?” she said, playing a few notes.

“What, are you there?” said Sonia, startled. “I do not know,” she said, coming closer to listen, “unless it is from ‘La Tempete’;” but she spoke doubtfully.

“It was exactly so,” thought Natacha. “She started as she came forward, smiling so gently; and I thought then, as I think now, that there is something in her which is quite lacking in me. No,” she said aloud, “you are quite out; it is the chorus from the ‘Porteur d’Eau’–listen,” and she hummed the air. “Where are you going?”

“For some fresh water to finish my drawing.”

“You are always busy and I never. Where is Nicolas?”

“Asleep, I think.”

“Go and wake him, Sonia. Tell him to come and sing.”

Sonia went, and Natacha relapsed into dreaming and wondering how it had all happened. Not being able to solve the puzzle, she drifted into reminiscence once more. She could see him–him–and feel his impassioned eyes fixed on her face. “Oh, make haste back! I am so afraid he will not come yet! Besides, it is all very well, but I am growing old; I shall be quite different from what I am now! Who knows? Perhaps he will come to-day! Perhaps he is here already! Here in the drawing-room. Perhaps he came yesterday and I have forgotten.”

She rose, laid down the guitar, and went into the next room. All the household party were seated round the tea-table,–the professors, the governesses, the guests; the servants were waiting on one and another–but there was no Prince Andre.

“Ah, here she is,” said her father. “Come and sit down here.” But Natacha stopped by her mother without heeding his bidding.

“Oh, mamma, bring him to me, give him to me soon, very soon,” she murmured, swallowing down a sob. Then she sat down and listened to the others. “Good God! always the same people! always the same thing! Papa holds his cup as he always does, and blows his tea to cool it as he did yesterday, and as he will to-morrow.”

She felt a sort of dull rebellion against them all; she hated them for always being the same.

After tea Sonia, Natacha, and Nicolas huddled together in their favorite, snug corner of the drawing-room; that was where they talked freely to each other.

“Do you ever feel,” Natacha asked her brother, “as if there was nothing left to look forward to; as if you had had all your share of happiness, and were not so much weary as utterly dull?”

“Of course I have. Very often I have seen my friends and fellow-officers in the highest spirits and been just as jolly myself, and suddenly have been struck so dull and dismal, have so hated life, that I have wondered whether we were not all to die at once. I remember one day, for instance, when I was with the regiment; the band was playing, and I had such a fit of melancholy that I never even thought of going to the promenade.”

“How well I understand that! I recollect once,” Natacha went on, “once when I was a little girl, I was punished for having eaten some plums, I think. I had not done it, and you were all dancing, and I was left alone in the school-room. How I cried! cried because I was so sorry for myself, and so vexed with you all for making me so unhappy.”

“I remember; and I went to comfort you and did not know how; we were funny children then; I had a toy with bells that jingled, and I made you a present of it.”