ncense. There was an oppressive feeling of heaviness in Serafima
Aleksandrovna's head as she approached Lelechka. Lelechka lay there
still and pale, and smiled pathetically. Serafima Aleksandrovna laid
her cheek upon the edge of Lelechka's coffin, and whispered:
"_Tiu-tiu_, little one!"

The little one did not reply. Then there was some kind of stir and
confusion around Serafima Aleksandrovna; strange, unnecessary faces
bent over her, some one held her--and Lelechka was carried away
somewhere.

Serafima Aleksandrovna stood up erect, sighed in a lost way, smiled,
and called loudly: "Lelechka!"

Lelechka was being carried out. The mother threw herself after the
coffin with despairing sobs, but she was held back. She sprang behind
the door, through which Lelechka had passed, sat down there on the
floor, and as she looked through the crevice, she cried out:
"Lelechka, _tiu-tiu!_"

Then she put her head out from behind the door, and began to laugh.

Lelechka was quickly carried away from her mother, and those who
carried her seemed to run rather than to walk.

DETHRONED

BY I.N. POTAPENKO

"Well?" Captain Zarubkin's wife called out impatiently to her husband,
rising from the sofa and turning to face him as he entered.

"He doesn't know anything about it," he replied indifferently, as if
the matter were of no interest to him. Then he asked in a businesslike
tone: "Nothing for me from the office?"

"Why should I know? Am I your errand boy?"

"How they dilly-dally! If only the package doesn't come too late. It's
so important!"

"Idiot!"

"Who's an idiot?"

"You, with your indifference, your stupid egoism."

The captain said nothing. He was neither surprised nor insulted. On
the contrary, the smile on his face was as though he had received a
compliment. These wifely animadversions, probably oft-heard, by no
means interfered with his domestic peace.

"It can't be that the man doesn't know when his wife is coming back
home," Mrs. Zarubkin continued excitedly. "She's written to him every
day of the four months that she's been away. The postmaster told me
so."

"Semyonov! Ho, Semyonov! Has any one from the office been here?"

"I don't know, your Excellency," came in a loud, clear voice from back
of the room.

"Why don't you know? Where have you been?"

"I went to Abramka, your Excellency."

"The tailor again?"

"Yes, your Excellency, the tailor Abramka."

The captain spat in annoyance.