"I have never said so, Nina."

"It is late now, father. Will you not go to bed?"

Old Balatka yielded to this suggestion, and went to his bed; and Nina,
after some hour or two, went to hers. But before doing so she opened
the little desk that stood in the corner of their sitting-room, of
which the key was always in her pocket, and took out everything that it
contained. There were many letters there, of which most were on matters
of business--letters which in few houses would come into the hands of
such a one as Nina Balatka, but which, through the weakness of her
father's health, had come into hers. Many of these she now read; some
few she tore and burned in the stove, and others she tied in bundles
and put back carefully into their place. There was not a paper in the
desk which did not pass under her eye, and as to which she did not come
to some conclusion, either to keep it or to burn it. There were no
love-letters there. Nina Balatka had never yet received such a letter
as that. She saw her lover too frequently to feel much the need of
written expressions of love; and such scraps of his writing as there
were in the bundles, referred altogether to small matters of business.
When she had thus arranged her papers, she too went to bed. On the next
morning, when she gave her father his breakfast, she was very silent.
She made for him a little chocolate, and cut for him a few slips of
white bread to dip into it. For herself, she cut a slice from a black
loaf made of rye flour, and mixed with water a small quantity of the
thin sour wine of the country. Her meal may have been worth perhaps a
couple of kreutzers, or something less than a penny, whereas that of
her father may have cost twice as much. Nina was a close and sparing
housekeeper, but with all her economy she could not feed three people