old neglected garden on that morning looked young and gaily decked.

Granny was already awake. Sasha's husky cough began. Nadya could
hear them below, setting the samovar and moving the chairs. The
hours passed slowly, Nadya had been up and walking about the garden
for a long while and still the morning dragged on.

At last Nina Ivanovna appeared with a tear-stained face, carrying
a glass of mineral water. She was interested in spiritualism and
homeopathy, read a great deal, was fond of talking of the doubts
to which she was subject, and to Nadya it seemed as though there
were a deep mysterious significance in all that.

Now Nadya kissed her mother and walked beside her.

"What have you been crying about, mother?" she asked.

"Last night I was reading a story in which there is an old man and
his daughter. The old man is in some office and his chief falls in
love with his daughter. I have not finished it, but there was a
passage which made it hard to keep from tears," said Nina Ivanovna
and she sipped at her glass. "I thought of it this morning and shed
tears again."

"I have been so depressed all these days," said Nadya after a pause.
"Why is it I don't sleep at night!"

"I don't know, dear. When I can't sleep I shut my eyes very tightly,
like this, and picture to myself Anna Karenin moving about and
talking, or something historical from the ancient world. . . ."