It is our exacting mistress." Ignat talked with his son about two hours, telling him of his own youth, of his toils, of men; their terrible power, and of their weakness; of how they live, and sometimes pretend to be unfortunate in order to live on other people's money; and then he told him of himself, and of how he rose from a plain working man to be proprietor of a large concern.

The boy listened to his words, looked at him and felt as though his father were coming nearer and nearer to him.

And though his father's story did not contain the material of which Aunt Anfisa's fairy-tales were brimful, there was something new in it, something clearer and more comprehensible than in her fairy-tales, and something just as interesting.

Something powerful and warm began to throb within his little heart, and he was drawn toward his father.

Ignat, evidently, surmised his son's feelings by his eyes: he rose abruptly from his seat, seized him in his arms and pressed him firmly to his breast.