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PERT little boy in buttons put his close-cropped head in at the door of a room where five lady-typists were clattering on their machines, and said:

"Nadezhda Alexevna, Mrs. Kolimstcheva is asking for you on the telephone."

A tall well-built girl of twenty-seven got up and went downstairs to the telephone. She walked with quiet self-possession, and had that deep steadfastness of gaze only given to those who have outlived heavy sorrows and patiently endured them to the end. She was thinking to herself:

"What has happened now?"

She knew already that if her sister wanted to speak to her it was because something unpleasant had occurred—the children were ill, the husband worried over business, they were in need of money—something of that sort. She would have to go there and see what could be done—to help, to sympathise,