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