s enquiries.

One day, just as Daria and Var-Vara were about to start for a morning
walk--Elena and Boris having gone for a drive with their father--an
old man in a rough sheep-skin coat and plaited bark shoes came up to
the house door, and taking off his high felt hat respectfully, asked
if he could speak to the _Barin_.[D]

[D] Master.

"The master has gone out," said Var-Vara, "but I daresay you can see
him in the afternoon. Have you anything particular to ask him?"

"Nothing to ask, but something to show," and the old man blinked his
eyes cunningly.

"Not the wooden box!" screamed Daria. "Oh, let's go at once! Come,
Var-Vara! _What_ a surprise for papa when he gets back! _Is_ it the
wooden box? You might tell me," cried Daria, fixing her blue eyes on
the old _mujik_'s face pleadingly.

"It may be, and it mayn't be," replied the old man. "You may come
along with me if you like, Daria Andreievna. I'll show you the way to
where I live--near the forest, you know. Of course, I've heard all
about the reward," he continued, "and as I was clearing a bit of my
yard this morning, what should I find but a heap of something
hard--pebbles, and drift, and sticks, and such like. When I came to
sorting it out--for I thought, 'Why waste good wood, when you can burn
it? the good God doesn't like waste'--I struck against the corner of
something hard, and there was a----. Well, what do you think, Daria
Andreievna?"

"A box! A box!" cried Daria, seizing one of the old man's hands, and
dancing round him in an ecstasy of delight.

"Not at all, Daria Andreievna! The legs of an old chair."

Daria's face fell. "I don't see why you come to tell papa you've found
an old chair!" she said crossly.

"Stop a bit, _Matoushka_. There's more to come. Where was I?"

"The chair! You'd just found it," said Daria, pulling at his hand
impatiently.

"So I had. A chair! Well, it had no back, and as I pulled it out it
felt heavy, very heavy. It wasn't much to look at--a poor chair I
should call it--and I thought, '_This_ isn't much of a find;' but
there inside it was something sticking as tight as wax!"

"The box!" cried Daria, "I felt sure of it!" and seizing Var-Vara by
one hand, and the _mujik_ by the other, she dragged them down the
street, the old peasant remonstrating and grumbling.

"Not so fast, Daria Andreievna!" said Var-Vara, gasping for breath at
the sudden rush. "Let Ivan go first; he knows the way!"

Daria could scarcely con