Pagina 278 de 3800

Prince Andrew evidently felt ill at ease, but to the two women it

seemed quite natural that they should cry, and apparently it

never entered their heads that it could have been otherwise at

this meeting.

"Ah! my dear!... Ah! Mary!..." they suddenly exclaimed, and then

laughed. "I dreamed last night..."-"You were not expecting

us?..." "Ah! Mary, you have got thinner?..." "And you have grown

stouter!..."

"I knew the princess at once," put in Mademoiselle Bourienne.

"And I had no idea!..." exclaimed Princess Mary. "Ah, Andrew, I

did not see you."

Prince Andrew and his sister, hand in hand, kissed one another,

and he told her she was still the same crybaby as ever. Princess

Mary had turned toward her brother, and through her tears the

loving, warm, gentle look of her large luminous eyes, very

beautiful at that moment, rested on Prince Andrew's face.