Our pretty manners were very much admired, so that we became used to being held up as models to children less polite.

Guests at our table praised our deportment, when, at the end of a meal, we kissed the hands of father and mother and thanked them for food.

Envious mothers of rowdy children used to sneer, "Those grandchildren of Raphael the Russian are quite the aristocrats." [Illustration: MY FATHER'S PORTRAIT] And yet, off the stage, we had our little quarrels and tempests, especially I.I really and truly cannot remember a time when Fetchke was naughty, but I was oftener in trouble than out of it.

I need not go into details.

I only need to recall how often, on going to bed, I used to lie silently rehearsing the day's misdeeds, my sister refraining from talk out of sympathy.