ly
see the poplars, the barn, black smoke rising on one side--they
were burning old straw. And there was Auntie Dasha coming to meet
her and waving her handkerchief; grandfather was on the terrace.
Oh dear, how happy she was!

"My darling, my darling!" cried her aunt, shrieking as though she
were in hysterics. "Our real mistress has come! You must understand
you are our mistress, you are our queen! Here everything is yours!
My darling, my beauty, I am not your aunt, but your willing slave!"

Vera had no relations but her aunt and her grandfather; her mother
had long been dead; her father, an engineer, had died three months
before at Kazan, on his way from Siberia. Her grandfather had a big
grey beard. He was stout, red-faced, and asthmatic, and walked
leaning on a cane and sticking his stomach out. Her aunt, a lady
of forty-two, drawn in tightly at the waist and fashionably dressed
with sleeves high on the shoulder, evidently tried to look young
and was still anxious to be charming; she walked with tiny steps
with a wriggle of her spine.

"Will you love us?" she said, embracing Vera, "You are not proud?"

At her grandfather's wish there was a thanksgiving service, then
they spent a long while over dinner--and Vera's new life began.
She was given the best room. All the rugs in the house had been put
in it, and a great many flowers; and when at night she lay down in
her snug, wide, very soft bed and covered herself with a silk quilt
that smelt of old clothes long stored away, she laughed with pleasure.
Auntie Dasha came in for a minute to wish her good-night.

"Here you are home again, thank God," she said, sitting down on the
bed. "As you see, we get along very well and have everything we
want. There's only one thing: your grandfather is in a poor way! A
terribly poor way! He is short of breath and he has begun to lose
his memory. And you remember how strong, how vigorous, he used to
be! There was no doing anything with him. . . . In old days, if the
servants didn't please him or anything else went wrong, he would
jump up at once and shout: 'Twenty-five strokes! The birch!' But
now he has grown milder and you never hear him. And besides, times
are changed, my precious; one mayn't beat them nowadays. Of course,
they oughtn't to be beaten, but they need looking after."

"And are they beaten now, auntie?" asked Vera.

"The steward beats them sometimes, but I never do, bless their
hearts! And your grandfather someti