kind of weather have you there now?" And without waiting for an
answer, she looked cordially at the schoolboys and repeated:

"How tall they have grown! It is not long since they used to come
with their nurse, and they are at school already! The old grow older
while the young grow up. . . . Have you had dinner?"

"Oh, please don't trouble!" said the student.

"Why, you have not had dinner?"

"For goodness' sake, don't trouble!"

"But I suppose you are hungry?" Olga Mihalovna said it in a harsh,
rude voice, with impatience and vexation--it escaped her unawares,
but at once she coughed, smiled, and flushed crimson. "How tall
they have grown!" she said softly.

"Please don't trouble!" the student said once more.

The student begged her not to trouble; the boys said nothing;
obviously all three of them were hungry. Olga Mihalovna took them
into the dining-room and told Vassily to lay the table.

"How unkind of your mamma!" she said as she made them sit down.
"She has quite forgotten me. Unkind, unkind, unkind . . . you must
tell her so. What are you studying?" she asked the student.

"Medicine."