felt boots, and a warm cap, ran hurriedly out of the house into the yard. ‘Take me with you!’ he cried, fastening up his coat as he ran.

‘All right, come along, darling!’ said Nikita, and stopping the sledge he picked up the master’s pale thin little son, radiant with joy, and drove out into the road.

It was past two o’clock and the day was windy, dull, and cold, with more than twenty degrees Fahrenheit of frost. Half the sky was hidden by a lowering dark cloud. In the yard it was quiet, but in the street the wind was felt more keenly. The snow swept down from a neighbouring shed and whirled about in the corner near the bath-house.

Hardly had Nikita driven out of the yard and turned the horse’s head to the house,