“Wandering is not bad, Anna Evauovna. One sees men and women then. A man does not care so much to live in one place after he sees the world. But we shall get on nicely, I suppose.”
Anna Evauovna walked on, her wrinkled old face all puckered with laughter.
“That is what comes of what one waits and wearies for,” she said to herself.
As she passed the hedge, behind which she had watched Ivan’s home-coming, she heard two voices on the other side, and paused to listen. A man and a woman were talking earnestly together.
“But you know it was you I always loved, Masha,” said the deeper tones. It was Alioscha speaking.
Anna Evauovna went on her way, bending double with laughter. She did not need to hear the answer Masha gave—for she knew all things, did Anna Evauovna.
THE END