reared and shied. But its rider, who took its proceedings very
quietly, gripped the saddle firmly with his knees, laid his whip
across the horse's neck, and forced it, in spite of its resistance, to
return to the window, "_Prenez garde, prenez garde_," Maria Dmitrievna
kept calling out.

"Now then, stroke him, Lenochka," repeated the horseman; "I don't mean
to let him have his own way."

Lenochka stretched out her hand a second time, and timidly touched
the quivering nostrils of Orlando, who champed his bit, and kept
incessantly fidgeting.

"Bravo!" exclaimed Maria Dmitrievna; "but now get off, and come in."

The rider wheeled his horse sharply round, drove the spurs into its
sides, rode down the street at a hand gallop, and turned into the
court-yard. In another minute he had crossed the hall and entered the
drawing-room, flourishing his whip in the air.

At the same moment there appeared on the threshold of another doorway
a tall, well-made, dark-haired girl of nineteen--Maria Dmitrievna's
elder daughter, Liza.




IV.