"'My darling, no,' I answered. 'She screams too lustily to be hurt.' "'And the wolf?' He raised his head from my shoulder and looked wildly around. "'He is dead. You have slain him, my hero,' I assured him. "Then he shut his eyes with a great sigh. "'Let me sleep, father,' he murmured. 'I am so tired.'" The peasant chuckled. "He was played out, my little wolf-slayer. The Noble Prince should have seen how he lay like a sack, and slept and slept!" Meanwhile Ivanka had grown shy again and gazed wistfully towards the door. But the Prince still held him between his knees. Even when he rose to go, the High Noble detained the boy with a hand on his head. "Give him to me," he said to the peasant. "Let me take him with me when I go to Petersburg. I will make a great man of him. He shall be a soldier and fight for the Czar." There was dead silence. The peasant's face had gone crimson. His eyes flew to his son and held him in jealous regard. "Will you go with me, Ivanka, you wolf-slayer, to help keep the human wolves from invading the dominions of the Czar? You shall be taught with the sons of the highest in the land, and shall wear the uniform of an Imperial cadet." Ivanka raised solemn eyes to the face that was bent towards him. It was a noble face, handsome and benign, and imposing against the swelling sable of the high collar. "He is great and good and beautiful, like my patron saint, Ivan," he thought. Something stirred in the gloom of the hut, and quickly Ivanka turned to where his mother sat with the sleeping Minka in her lap. His lip began to quiver. The peasant found his tongue. "Give him time, Noble Prince," he faltered, huskily, and he too looked towards the crouching figure by the stove. "It is a great thing the High Noble offers, but the boy is very young." "Take your time," replied the Prince. "In the spring I shall return. Then, since you are sensible people, he will be ready to go." [Illustration: "THE GREAT MAN PRESSED A ROLL OF NOTES INTO HIS HAND."] With these words the great man stooped and kissed Ivanka, pressing a roll of notes into his hand. From the door Ivanka watched the Prince depart. He gazed after the fine sledge with its prancing horses as they sped, swift as the wind, towards the wonderful, mysterious city of the Great Czar. When it had disappeared and the merry jingle of the silver bells no longer reached his ear it was to him as though a bright noontide sun had suddenly dropped from the heavens. And there and then a feeling of longing after greater things crept into his valiant little heart. "You shall decide for yourself, my son," said the peasant. And the mother hid her grief because she wished Ivanka to be a great man. Thus it was that when the spring came to stir the sap in the trees and release the ice-bound brooks, at the return of the Prince, Ivanka was ready to go. _In Nature's Workshop._ II.--FALSE PRETENCES. By Grant Allen.