exclaimed joyously: "Here she is, my Lelechka!"

Lelechka laughed long and merrily, her head close to her mother's
knees, and all of her cuddled up between her mother's white hands. Her
mother's eyes glowed with passionate emotion.

"Now, _mamochka_, you hide," said Lelechka, as she ceased laughing.

Her mother went to hide. Lelechka turned away as though not to see,
but watched her _mamochka_ stealthily all the time. Mamma hid behind
the cupboard, and exclaimed: "_Tiu-tiu_, baby girl!"

Lelechka ran round the room and looked into all the corners, making
believe, as her mother had done before, that she was seeking--though
she really knew all the time where her _mamochka_ was standing.

"Where's my _mamochka_?" asked Lelechka. "She's not here, and she's
not here," she kept on repeating, as she ran from corner to corner.

Her mother stood, with suppressed breathing, her head pressed against
the wall, her hair somewhat disarranged. A smile of absolute bliss
played on her red lips.

The nurse, Fedosya, a good-natured and fine-looking, if somewhat
stupid woman, smiled as she looked at her mistress with her
characteristic expression, which seemed to say that it was not for her
to object to gentlewomen's caprices. She thought to herself: "The
mother is like a little child herself--look how excited she is."

Lelechka was getting nearer her mother's corner. Her mother was
growing more absorbed every moment by her interest in the game; her
heart beat with short quick strokes, and she pressed even closer to
the wall, disarranging her hair still more. Lelechka suddenly glanced
toward her mother's corner and screamed with joy.

"I've found 'oo," she cried out loudly and joyously, mispronouncing
her words in a way that again made her mother happy.

She pulled her mother by her hands to the middle of the room, they
were merry and they laughed; and Lelechka again hid her head against
her mother's knees, and went on lisping and lisping, without end, her
sweet little words, so fascinating yet so awkward.

Sergey Modestovich was coming at this moment toward the nursery.
Through the half-closed doors he heard the laughter, the joyous
outcries, the sound of romping. He entered the nursery, smiling his
genial cold smile; he was irreproachably dressed, and he looked fresh
and erect, and he spread round him an atmosphere of cleanliness,
freshness and coldness. He entered in the midst of the lively game,
and he confused them all by