Happiness and peace dwelt in that cottage. Such bright spots on the earth are met with, though rarely, like oases in a desert. The old people enjoyed each other, and went side by side as in the first days after marriage; they called each other falcon and berry. What joy there was when that son came home for vacation, no tongue can tell, no pen can describe. With Vasilkevich came Karvovski. The old people loved and petted him also, but he was not for them as their Yasek, whom they simply called "Ours." Often when the young men were tired from racing a whole day through the wilderness, the old people after going to bed talked in a low voice about them. This is what Karvovski heard once through their chamber partition,-- "He is a handsome boy, that Karvovski," said the old man. "But ours is handsomer," answered the old woman. "Oh, handsomer, handsomer!" Meanwhile that "Ours" was what is called ugly, but through the prism of parental love he seemed the most beautiful on earth. It is not reality itself, but the heart with which we approach it that gives things their form and color. But let us return to Kieff and to our acquaintances. It is nothing wonderful that with such hosts as Vasilkevich and Karvovski their dwelling, in which among other things stood a perfect stove, became a centre for many students. Even the intelligence of the University assembled there; literary evenings were established. All who felt a vein for letters made public their productions in those rooms. The long autumn evenings were turned into genuine literary sessions. It would be difficult to enumerate the burning thoughts which were uttered there by youthful lips. Vasilkevich, Karvovski, Yosef, in a little while Gustav, and especially Augustinovich, took the lead in those meetings. Yosef tried his creative powers, but somehow he did not succeed, he had not the talent, simply; he did not know how to fashion, how to create, how to attach his own ideas to that golden thread of fantasy which bathes all things in rainbow tints before it gives them to the world warmed and illuminated, or bright as a summer night's lightning. But in recompense he had another kind of power. He judged soundly, and what is more, with keenness. After he had read a production of his own he analyzed it in presence of all; joyous laughter continued till late in the apartments. In like manner did he treat the productions of others; if he ridiculed the chips flew from those first offerings placed on the altar of art. He was able so to arrange his voice and expression of face to the current of his words that when he wished the gloomiest subject roused the most laughter. This obtained for him great consideration. Those who, feeling a sympathy for the moon, struck the sentimental chords of their hearts, dreaded him as they might have dreaded Satan.