It is July. Lensky has fixed his return for the fifteenth. "Afternoon, with the first train that I can catch; but do not worry if I should be late," said his letter.
Not at the station, no, only to the hedge which incloses the park, will Natalie go to meet him.
Kolia quivers with impatience. Natalie counts the hours, draws out her watch--it has stopped. She hurries in the dining-room to consult the clock on the mantel, and discovers Kolia, who, kneeling on a chair, moves the hands.
"What are you doing?" says she, laughing.
The boy sighs impatiently. "I am fixing the clock, mamma. I am sure it must be sick, it goes too slowly to-day."
How she kisses him for it! How pleased she will be to tell Boris of it!
"Hark!"
A shrill sound of a bell, a penetrating whistle; the train has come.
She fetches her little daughter, who has had a charming little white dress put on her, in honor of her father's arrival.
With the little one on her arm, and Kolia at her hand, she steps out under the lindens, which are in full bloom, and throw a sunlit shadowy carpet over the path. Oh, how her poor heart beats! She kisses the tiny hands of her little daughter from excitement, looks scrutinizingly at the little child. Will he think her pretty?