ve a little cry, upon which her guardian
seized her arm protectingly, glaring, the while, at the presumptuous
one:

"Let me go, Katrina! It is my cousin--from Moscow--Ivan
Mikhailovitch!--I knew that you were in Petersburg, Ivan. But--you are
out very early!"

Ivan gave a joyous laugh. He was, as a matter of fact, just returning
from a night of festivity at the Nobility Club. But this, naturally, was
not to be confessed.

"No earlier than you, at least, mademoiselle," he returned. "And will
you accept my escort to wherever you are going?"

Nathalie gave one, quick glance into the old woman's scowling face. Then
the demon of mischief entered into her, and she accepted Ivan's offer.

That fifteen-minute walk to the Serghievskaia, with the lynx-eyed
guardian tramping at his heels, wrought new havoc with Ivan. It took
sixty seconds to perceive that the closely cherished ideal of his
boyhood had been worthy of every moment of adulation expended on it. Two
minutes more, and the intensity of past emotions was quite swallowed up
in the joy of the present. In just what light the maiden regarded him,
she made it difficult enough for him to guess. But the interpretation of
his own feelings,--this furious throbbing of his heart, the awkward
hesitancy of his speech,--was no very difficult matter. When at last he
left her, at her mother's door, he made himself an inward promise that
this should be the first of many such meetings. And when he reached his
own quarters, it was to amaze de Windt by the radiance of his expression
and his apparent lack of fatigue. Though he retired presently to his
room and lay down there, he found sleep to be a thing entirely
undesirable, considering the subject of his waking dreams.

Next morning, somewhat earlier than on the previous day, he entered the
church of the Virgin of Kazan. But though for an hour and a half he saw
every soul that entered there, his cousin did not come. That morning
was a black one. In the afternoon, driven by his folly, he presented
himself, at an absurd hour, at the house of his aunt. There he was
received, promptly. But he was not long left in doubt about the nature
of his welcome. Madame Dravikine, it appeared, had learned the whole
tale of yesterday's walk from the dragoness-serf; and her nephew had to
endure a short and sarcastic sermon upon the nature of etiquette for
young girls which finally sent him from the house, white-faced and
furious. Truly, if his aunt ha