"Dear Heart:--Just received a despatch from Aunt Katherine. Uncle Sergei is ill, desires me urgently. I must leave by the 3.25 train. Have not even time to take leave of you. Unfortunate for our cosey evening. God keep you, my little dove; be brave and prudent for love of me, and also for your own sake. Write me all that is on your heart, every little annoyance which weighs upon you. If you ever need immediate advice, go to Sonia and Fräulein von Sankjéwitch, who both love you. I kiss and embrace you.
"Your faithful brother,
"Colia."
"Is there nothing but unpleasantness in the world?" sighs Mascha, upon receiving this note. "But still, what use to torment one's self?"
After she has devoted perhaps fifteen minutes to the deepest sorrow, she runs singing about the house, and makes gay little jokes.
Now it is evening, and they stand in the vestibule and await the carriage--Anna and aunt; Anna with her regal bearing and carelessly trailing draperies; Barbara with her nervous anxiety and scant, short dress.
"What lace is that around your neck?" calls out Anna, angrily, looking at her mother through her lorgnon. "Did you buy that fichu on the Campo dei Fiori? It is grotesque! You look like a stage mother."
Barbara pulls uneasily at her fichu and drops her purse.
"Wait, auntie, I have such wonderful lace of mamma's up-stairs," says Mascha, who until now has been sunk in childish admiration of Anna's ice-cold blond beauty and white crêpe de Chine splendor. "Only a moment, auntie, I will bring it immediately." And she rushes up-stairs and returns in a minute with sewing utensils and a box smelling of Peau d'Espagne. "See, you must put on this scarf, auntie."
"We will call the maid," proposes Madame Jeliagin.