s
before, "when the place was kept up as a country gentleman's should
be"--he was fond of explaining to the children--"but when the poor
dear master was taken off to Siberia--he was as good as a saint, and
no one knew what they found out against him--then the Government took
all his money, and your mother had to manage as well as she could with
the little property left her by your grandfather. She ought to have
owned all the country round, but your great-grandfather was an
extravagant man, Boris Andreievitch! and he sold everything he could
lay hands on!"

Elena and Boris always listened respectfully. They had the greatest
opinion of "Uncle Volodia's" wisdom, and they could just remember the
time of grief and excitement when their father left them; but it had
all happened so long ago that though their mother often spoke of him,
and their old nurse Var-Vara was never tired of relating anecdotes of
his childhood, they had gradually begun to think of him, not as a
living person, but as one of the heroes of the old romances that still
lingered on the shelves of the dilapidated library.

It was a happy life the children led in the great white house. It made
no difference to them that the furniture was old and scanty, that the
rooms were bare, and the plaster falling away in many places from the
walls and ceilings.

Their mother was there, and all their old friends, and they wished for
nothing further.

Was there not Toulu, the horse, in his stall in the ruined stable;
Tulipan, the Pomeranian dog, Adam, the old butler, and Alexis, the
"man of all work," who rowed their boat on the lake, tidied the
garden--as well as the weeds and his own natural laziness would allow
him--and was regarded by Boris as the type of all manly perfection!

What could children want more? Especially as Volodia was always ready
at a moment's notice to tell them a story, carve them a peasant or a
dog from a chip of pine-wood, dance a jig, or entertain them in a
hundred other ways dear to the heart of Russian children.

CHAPTER II.

On one of the clear dry days of an early Russian autumn, when a
brilliant glow of colour and sunshine floods the air, and the birch
trees turned to golden glories shake their fluttering leaves like
brilliant butterflies, Elena, Boris, and Daria, stood on one of the
wide balconies of the great house, with their mother beside them,
sorting seeds and tying them up in packets for the springtime.

Some large hydrange