feel her presence. This at last rouses me to spring up, to throw my arms
around her neck, to hide my head in her bosom, and to say with a sigh:

"Ah, dear, darling Mamma, how much I love you!"

She smiles her sad, enchanting smile, takes my head between her two
hands, kisses me on the forehead, and lifts me on to her lap.

"Do you love me so much, then?" she says. Then, after a few moments'
silence, she continues: "And you must love me always, and never forget
me. If your Mamma should no longer be here, will you promise never to
forget her--never, Nicolinka? and she kisses me more fondly than ever.

"Oh, but you must not speak so, darling Mamma, my own darling Mamma!"
I exclaim as I clasp her knees, and tears of joy and love fall from my
eyes.

How, after scenes like this, I would go upstairs, and stand before the
ikons, and say with a rapturous feeling, "God bless Papa and Mamma!" and
repeat a prayer for my beloved mother which my childish lips had learnt
to lisp-the love of God and of her blending strangely in a single
emotion!

After saying my prayers I would wrap myself up in the bedclothes. My
heart would feel light, peaceful, and happy, and one dream would follow
another. Dreams of what? They were all of them vague, but all of them
full of pure love and of a sort of expectation of happiness. I remember,
too, that I used to think about Karl Ivanitch and his sad lot. He was
the only unhappy being whom I knew, and so sorry would I feel for him,
and so much did I love him, that tears would fall from my eyes as I