When the little girls had passed by the youngest of them, with fair hair, asked loudly: “Who’s this ugly duckling?”
The elder girl, who was red-cheeked and black-browed, laughed and answered: “I don’t know. We had better ask Lydochka. It’s most likely a poor relation.”
“What an absurd boy,” said the little blonde. “He spreads his ears out, and sits there and smiles.”
They disappeared behind the bushes at the turn of the path, and Grisha no longer heard their voices. He felt hurt, and when he thought that he might have to sit there a long time, until his mother should come for him, he was sick at heart.
A big-eyed, slender student with a stubborn crest of hair sticking up from his high forehead noticed that Grisha was sitting alone there like an orphan, and he wished to be kind to him, and to make him feel more at his ease; so he sat down near him.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
Grisha told him quietly.
“And my name is Mitya,” said the student. “Are you here alone, or with any one?”
“With mother,” whispered Grisha.
“Why do you sit here all by yourself?” asked Mitya.