Nastasia Carpovna. "If you have not gone to the early mass to-day, you
will go to the later one."

"Not a bit of it. Thou shalt go alone. I've grown lazy, my mother,"
answered Marfa Timofeevna. "I am spoiling myself terribly with tea
drinking."

She said _thou_ to Nastasia Carpovna, although she lived on a footing
of equality with her--but it was not for nothing that she was a
Pestof. Three Pestofs occur in the Sinodik[A] of Ivan the Terrible.
Marfa Timofeevna was perfectly well aware of the fact.

[Footnote A: "_I.e._, in the list of the nobles of his time, in the
sixteenth century.]

"Tell me, please," Lavretsky began again. "Maria Dmitrievna was
talking to me just now about that--what's his name?--Panshine. What
sort of a man is he?"

"Good Lord! what a chatter-box she is!" grumbled Marfa Timofeevna.
"I've no doubt she has communicated to you as a secret that he hangs
about here as a suitor. She might have been contented to 'Whisper
about it with her _popovich_[A] But no, it seems that is not enough
for her. And yet there is nothing settled so far, thank God! but she's
always chattering."

[Footnote A: The priest's son. _i.e._, Gedeonovsky.]

"Why do you say 'Thank God?'" asked Lavretsky.