that she would be no longer the same Tanya, but another one.

However, we told her nothing about the dispute. We asked her no
questions and treated her as kindly as before. But something new and
foreign to our former feelings for Tanya crept in stealthily into our
relation toward her, and this new _something_ was keen curiosity,
sharp and cold like a steel knife.

"Fellows! Time is up to-day!" said the baker one morning, commencing
to work.

We knew this well without his calling our attention to it, but we
gave a start, nevertheless.

"Watch her! . . . She'll come soon!" suggested the baker. Some one
exclaimed regretfully: "What can we see?"

And again a lively, noisy dispute ensued. To-day we were to learn at
last how far pure and inaccessible to filth was the urn wherein we
had placed all that was best in us. This morning we felt for the
first time that we were really playing a big game, that this test of
our godling's purity might destroy our idol. We had been told all
these days that the soldier was following Tanya obstinately, but for
some reason or other none of us asked how she treated him. And she
kept on coming to us regularly every morning for biscuits and was the
same as before. This day, too, we soon heard her voice:

"Little prisoners! I've come. . . ."

We hastened to let her in, and when she entered we met her, against