"Certainly, your excellency; tea to be served in the study?" Alexey Alexandrovitch ordered tea to be brought to the study, and playing with the massive paper-knife, he moved to his easy chair, near which there had been placed ready for him a lamp and the French work on Egyptian hieroglyphics that he had begun.

Over the easy chair there hung in a gold frame an oval portrait of Anna, a fine painting by a celebrated artist.

Alexey Alexandrovitch glanced at it.