The instructress to whom the sisters were listening ended her discourse and suddenly scampered off somewhere. Through the dark foliage of the trees could be seen the glimmer of red caps and of sunburnt arms and legs. The sisters were again left alone. No one paid especial attention to them any longer; evidently there was no one they either embarrassed or hindered. “It’s time to go,” said Elena. Elisaveta made a move. “Yes, let’s go,” she agreed. “It’s very interesting and delightful here, but we can’t stay for ever.” The departure of the sisters had been noticed. A few of the children ran up to them. The children cried gaily: “We will show you the way, or you’ll get lost.” When the sisters paused at the gate, Elisaveta thought that some one was looking at her, out of a hiding-place, with a gaze of astonishment. In perplexity, strange and distressing, she looked around her. Behind the hedge in the bushes a small boy and a small girl were hiding. They were like the others she had seen here, except that they were very white, as though the kisses of the stern Dragon floating in the hot sky had left no traces upon their tender skin. Both the little boy and the little girl were staring with a motionless but attentive gaze. Their chaste look seemed to penetrate into the very depth of one’s soul; this rather disconcerted Elisaveta. She whispered to Elena: “Look, what strange beings!” Elena looked in the direction of Elisaveta’s glance and said indifferently: “Monsters!” Elisaveta was astonished at her sister’s observation--the faces of these hiding children seemed to her like the faces of praying angels. By this time the children who had escorted the sisters ran back, jostling each other and laughing. Only one boy remained with them. He opened the gate and waited for the sisters to go out so that he could shut it again. Elisaveta quietly asked him: “Who are these?” With a light movement of her head she indicated the bushes, where the boy and the girl were hiding. The cheerful urchin looked in the direction of her glance, then at her, and said: “There’s no one there.” And actually no one was now visible in the bushes. Elisaveta persisted: “But I did see a boy and a girl there. Both were quite white, not at all brown like the rest of you. They stood ever so quietly and looked.” The cheery, dark-eyed lad looked attentively at Elisaveta, frowned slightly, lowered his eyes, reflected, then again eyed the sisters attentively and sadly, and said: “In the main building, where Giorgiy Sergeyevitch lives, there are more of these quiet children. They are never with us. They are quiet ones. They do not play. They have been ill. It’s likely they haven’t improved yet. I don’t know. They are kept separately.”