The first days and weeks passed quickly, and were full of sweet excitement. My brother and my sisters, as well as myself, made new friends immediately, and I do not think that at this time I thought much about my old friends. The people who lived in the house beside us called my mother "landlady," and I believe my mother liked to hear that. She also took a new maid, whom I thought to be a person of great importance. Very often she used to tell me stories about men, and confided in me her approaching marriage. Whenever she mentioned that coming event she looked exceedingly happy and proud, so I came to the conclusion that "to marry must be something beautiful," and wished to marry too. I confessed it to our maid, but she said that I was not old enough. "How old, then, must a girl be to be able to marry?" And to this question she replied: "I cannot say for certain; some girls marry early, some marry late." I decided to marry early. After we had been at the new place for a considerable time, I began to notice that something was going wrong. I could see that my father looked thoughtful, even sad, and that my mother cried often. Then my father went away suddenly, and did not return for many weeks. When he came back again, he looked pale and troubled, and my mother never ceased to cry. One day I went into the little kitchen-garden and wanted to sit down on an old chair which happened to be there. But another girl of my age, who was the daughter of one of our tenants and had hitherto treated me very politely, was already sitting on the chair. She did not get up as I had expected her to do, but crossed her arms above her head and looked at me sleepily. "Get up!" I demanded sullenly. "Why should I get up?" "Because I want to sit down." "Well, sit down on the ground." That answer made me terribly angry. "Get up!" I shouted, and stamped with my foot; "that chair belongs to us!" The girl laughed, and after a while she said, still laughing: "Nothing whatever belongs to you; everything has been seized from your people; all you have left is debts." Then she sprang to her feet, pushed the chair back with such violence that it fell to the ground, and ran off. I stood like one stunned and could not for a while understand what she had said; but then I remembered how often my mother cried, how sad my father looked, and all at once my veil of ignorance was lifted. I went back into the house, but as shyly and softly as if I were a criminal, and sat down silently on a chair. My mother sat at the table with the youngest child in her arms, and looked at me in surprise. I was generally very noisy, and upset a chair three times before I sat down. "Have you quarrelled with someone?" she asked. "No; but I should like to know whether what everyone says is true." My mother trembled a little. "What nonsense! What does everyone say?" "That we have nothing left but debts."