y depend upon it!"

Natacha went on. "Good God! have mercy, have mercy!" she said to
herself. "Wherever I go it is always, always the same. I am so weary;
what shall I do?"

Skipping lightly from step to step, she went to the upper story and
dropped in on the Ioghels. Two governesses were sitting chatting with M.
and Mme. Ioghel; dessert, consisting of dried fruit, was on the table,
and they were eagerly discussing the cost of living at Moscow and
Odessa. Natacha took a seat for a moment, listened with pensive
attention, and then jumped up again. "The island of Madagascar!" she
murmured, "Ma-da-gas-car!" and she separated the syllables. Then she
left the room without answering Mme. Schoss, who was utterly mystified
by her strange exclamation.

She next met Petia and a companion, both very full of some fireworks
which were to be let off that evening. "Petia!" she exclaimed, "carry me
down-stairs!" And she sprang upon his back, throwing her arms round his
neck; and, laughing and galloping, they thus scrambled along to the head
of the stairs.

"Thank you, that will do. Madagascar!" she repeated; and, jumping down,
she ran down the flight.

After thus inspecting her dominions, testing her power, and convincing
herself that her subjects were docile, and that there was no novelty to
be got out of them, Natacha settled herself in the darkest corner of the
music-room with her guitar, striking the bass strings, and trying to
make an accompaniment to an air from an opera that she and Prince Andre
had once heard together at St. Petersburg. The uncertain chords which
her unpractised fingers sketched out would have struck the least
experienced ear as wanting in harmony and musical accuracy, while to her
excited imagination they brought a whole train of memories. Leaning
against the wall and half hidden by a cabinet, with her eyes fixed on a
thread of light that came under the door from the rooms beyond, she
listened in ecstasy and dreamed of the past.

Sonia crossed the room with a glass in her hand. Natacha glanced round
at her and again fixed her eyes on the streak of light. She had the
strange feeling of having once before gone through the same
experience--sat in the same place, surrounded by the same details, and
watching Sonia pass carrying a tumbler. "Yes, it was exactly the same,"
she thought.

"Sonia, what is this tune?" she said, playing a few notes.

"What, are you there?" said Sonia, startled. "I do not know," s