Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/419

 CHAPTER XLI.

FROM AFAR.

"Here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come."

NE afternoon, in the spring of 1821, Clémence sat in her boudoir, a bright, pleasant room of the palace on the Fontanka, tastefully but not gaudily furnished. A lovely boy between three and four years old lay on the floor playing with an ivory alphabet. He was dressed à la mujik, his long curls of gold fell over a miniature caftan of fine blue cloth, which a sash of crimson silk bound about his waist. A younger child, in a white frock of some warm soft material edged with fur, sat on his mother's knee; and a great deal of baby chatter went on, which was rendered still more unintelligible by being half Russian and half French.

On the table beside Clémence lay a pile of books, with which she had been occupying herself. They were copies of the Four Gospels in Russ; and it was her pleasant task to write in each the name of a mujik of Nicolofsky who had been enterprising enough to learn the art of reading, and also to mark such passages and verses as she thought would be particularly profitable for study. But little Feodor's fancy for suddenly grasping the pen in her hand had put a stop for the present to her labours.

Some one knocked at the door; and, thinking it was the