After two games of patience, the old lady shuffled the cards and took a glance at her daughter.

“I have been trying with the cards whether it will be fine to-morrow, and whether our Alexey Stepanovitch will come,” she said.  “It is five days since he was here. . . .  The weather is a chastisement from God.”

Nadyezhda Filippovna looked indifferently at her mother, got up, and began walking up and down the room.

“The barometer was rising yesterday,” she said doubtfully, “but they say it is falling again to-day.”

The old lady laid out the cards in three long rows and shook her head.

“Do you miss him?” she asked, glancing at her daughter.

“Of course.”

“I see you do.  I should think so.  He hasn’t been here for five days.  In May the utmost was two, or at most three days, and now it is serious, five days!  I am not his wife, and yet I miss him.  And yesterday, when I heard the barometer was rising, I ordered them to kill a chicken and prepare a carp for Alexey Stepanovitch.  He likes them.  Your poor father couldn’t bear fish, but he likes it.  He always eats it with relish.”

“My heart aches for him,” said the daughter.  “We are dull, but it is duller still for him, you know, mamma.”

“I should think so!  In the law-courts day in and day out, and in the empty flat at night alone like an owl.”

“And what is so awful, mamma, he is alone there without servants; there is no one to set the samovar or bring him water.  Why didn’t he engage a valet for the summer months?  And what use is the summer villa at all if he does not care for it?  I told him there was no need to have it, but no, ‘It is for the sake of your health,’ he said, and what is wrong with my health?  It makes me ill that he should have to put up with so much on my account.”

Looking over her mother’s shoulder, the daughter noticed a mistake in the patience, bent down to the table and began correcting it.  A silence followed.  Both looked at the cards and imagined how their Alexey Stepanovitch, utterly forlorn, was sitting now in the town in his gloomy, empty study and working, hungry, exhausted, yearning for his family. . . .

“Do you know what, mamma?” said Nadyezhda Filippovna suddenly, and her eyes began to shine.  “If the weather is the same to-morrow I’ll go by the first train and see him in town!  Anyway, I shall find out how he is, have a look at him, and pour out his tea.”

And both of them began to wonder how it was that this idea, so simple and easy to carry out, had not occurred to them before.  It was only half an hour in the train to the town, and then twenty minutes in a cab.  They said a little more, and went off to bed in the same room, feeling more contented.

“Oho-ho-ho. . . .  Lord, forgive us sinners!” sighed the old lady when the clock in the hall struck two.  “There is no sleeping.”

“You are not asleep, mamma?” the daughter asked in a whisper.  “I keep thinking of Alyosha.  I only hope he won’t ruin his health in town.  Goodness knows where he dines and lunches.  In restaurants and taverns.”