CHAPTER IX.
The children, Volodia and his wife, Var-Vara, and Adam; all stood round eagerly as André Olsheffsky superintended the forcing open of the precious box.
"It's my belief the papers will be a pulp," whispered Volodia. "We must be ready to stand by the Barin when he finds out the disappointment."
But the papers were not hurt. The box contained another tin-lined case, in which the parchments had lain securely, and though damaged in appearance, they were as legible as the day on which they were first written.
"Oh, papa, I am so glad!" shouted Boris and Daria; and Elena silently took her father's hand.
"I always thought the Barin would have his own again," cried Volodia triumphantly, forgetting that only a moment before he had been full of dismal prophecies.
Adam and Var-Vara wept for joy, and Ivan stood by smiling complacently. He felt that all this happiness had been brought about entirely by his own exertions, and he already had visions of the manner in which he would employ the handsome reward.
"No more troubling about my old age," he thought. "I shall have as comfortable a life as the best of them."
That evening Mr. Olsheffsky started for Moscow, carrying the parchments with him.
The two months of his absence seemed very long to the children, though they heard from him constantly; and there were great rejoicings when he returned with the news that their affairs had at last been satisfactorily settled. Mikhail Paulovitch had withdrawn his claim, and the great house was their own again.
All the peasants of the neighbourhood came in a body to congratulate them. Those who could not get into Volodia's little sitting-room remained standing outside, and looked in respectfully through the window; while the spokesman read a long speech he had prepared for the occasion.
Mr. Olsheffsky made an appropriate reply, and then, turning to Volodia and the old servants, he thanked them in a few simple words for their goodness to the children.
"You might have knocked me flat down with a birch twig," said Uncle Volodia afterwards, when talking it over with Adam. "The idea of thanking us for what was nothing at all but a real pleasure! He's a good man, the Barin!"
The springtime found the children and their father settled once more in their old home, with Adam, Var-Vara, and Alexis; and life flowing on very much as it had always done, except for the absence of the gentle, motherly, Anna Olsheffsky.
Uncle Volodia continued to look after his shop with zeal; and the two rooms with the gilt furniture, which Mr. Olsheffsky had insisted on his not removing, became objects of the greatest pride and joy to him.
He never allowed anyone but himself to dust them, and in spare moments he polished the looking-glass with a piece of leather, kept carefully for the purpose in a cigar box.
"It's a great pleasure to me," he remarked one day to a neighbour, "to think that when I leave this house to Boris Andreïevitch—as I intend to do, after old Maria—it will have two rooms that are fit for anyone of the family to sleep in. He'll never have to be ashamed of them!"
On his seventieth birthday, Elena—now grown a tall slim young lady, with grave brown eyes—persuaded him that it was really time to take a little rest, and enjoy himself.
He thereupon sold his stock, and devoted himself to gardening in the yard at the back of his house; where he would sit on summer evenings smoking his pipe, in the midst of giant dahlias and sunflowers.
Here Daria often came with Boris and Tulipan; and sitting by Uncle Volodia's side, listened to the well-known stories she had heard since her babyhood—always ending up with the same words in a tone of great solemnity—
"And this, children, is a true story, every word of it!"