General Kirsakoff was tall, but thin and bent with age. His face was gaunt, but the bones of his cheeks were partly concealed by a white beard which was indifferently trimmed to a point at the chin. His gray eyes were dim, yet held some of their old fire and the look of an eagle—stern eyes looking out from under gray brows and a forehead furrowed by worries and his years. His head was covered with sparse white hair, which had a tendency to stand straight up, and waved when he moved his head quickly. “Ah, the cold is like a wolf!” said Michael, his hands clasped together as he shivered. “Has not Wassili come up with the fire? My teeth ache from the cold!” Katerin gave him a look of solicitude, and then took his hands and rubbed them. “I thought you would sleep longer, so I did not call for Wassili. And here you are dressed—but you should have a blanket over your shoulders.” “It is only my feet and my hands—and my teeth—that are cold. Let us have the samovar singing, and something hot. My poor old bones cannot stand the cold so well as they did. And this old house is damp—we must have a good fire to-day, happen what will.” He looked at Katerin closely, searching her face for signs of anxiety, but her whole manner had changed at his entrance to the room, and now as she went to the door to the hallway to call down to Wassili, the servant, she hummed a tune. She knew her father well enough to understand that his spirit must be kept up. He had been giving way recently to long spells of despondency. Michael was wearing one of his old uniforms of a general. It had been Katerin’s idea that he resume the discarded garments of authority, for she knew that he gained some comfort from it and that it helped him to forget the dark days which had come upon them. But Michael was only a shadow of his former self. His knees bent under him, his attenuated form did not fill the tunic, his hands were white and withered. They shook, as did his head at times, with the palsy of his age and feebleness. Yet the old general was still a striking figure in the gray tunic with the white cross hanging from its collar, the wreath and sword of another order of the Czar on his breast. A leather strap crossed his shoulder and came down athwart the front of the tunic. The heavy gold straps on his shoulders marked his rank. His trousers were blue with a pair of narrow gold stripes at the sides, and the belt about him had a silver buckle in front with the double-headed eagle of the Romanoffs. “So this is another day, little daughter,” said Michael, as he sat down upon a bench and stroked his beard. “Another day of waiting—waiting till these devils have lost their power to the army of the Emperor.” “Another day of hope, my father,” said Katerin. “What! Does not the day at the windows give you courage. Perhaps the Americans will come up from Vladivostok and save us. It is then that Zorogoff will have to change his ways.”