"It's time for your medicine, Fedia."
"Perhaps, auntie," answered the boy, and emptying the spoon he added, "Auntie, these stories of the saints are very interesting."
"Well, go on reading," Katerina Lvovna continued and casting her eyes round the room with a cold glance, let them rest on the frost-covered windows.
"I must order the shutters to be closed," said she going into the sitting-room, and thence into the hall, and then upstairs into her own room where she sat down.
Five minutes later Sergei, in a Romanov short fur coat trimmed with thick seal skin, joined her there.
"Have they closed the shutters?" Katerina Lvovna asked him.
"They have closed them," answered Sergei, snuffing the candles with the snuffers, and stopped near the stove.
They were both silent.
"Vespers will not be finished soon to-day?" asked Katrina Lvovna.
"To-morrow is a big festival; the service will be long," answered Sergei.
There was again silence.
"I'd better go to Fedia; he is alone," said Katerina Lvovna, rising.
