“Ah! my dear!⁠ ⁠… Ah! Marie!⁠ ⁠…” they suddenly exclaimed, and then laughed. “I dreamed last night⁠ ⁠…”⁠—“You were not expecting us?⁠ ⁠…” “Ah! Marie, you have got thinner?⁠ ⁠…” “And you have grown stouter!⁠ ⁠…”

“I knew the princess at once,” put in Mademoiselle Bourienne.

“And I had no idea!⁠ ⁠…” exclaimed Princess Márya. “Ah, André, I did not see you.”

Prince Andréy and his sister, hand in hand, kissed one another, and he told her she was still the same crybaby as ever. Princess Márya had turned toward her brother, and through her tears the loving, warm, gentle look of her large luminous eyes, very beautiful at that moment, rested on Prince Andréy’s face.