"Bring him direct to the ball and introduce him to me there. Were
you at B----'s yesterday?"

"Yes; everything went off very pleasantly, and dancing was kept up
until five o'clock. How charming Eletskaia was!"

"But, my dear, what is there charming about her? Isn't she like
her grandmother, the Princess Daria Petrovna? By the way, she must
be very old, the Princess Daria Petrovna?"

"How do you mean, old?" cried Tomsky, thoughtlessly, "she died
seven years ago."

The young lady raised her head, and made a sign to the young
officer. He then remembered that the old Countess was never to be
informed of the death of her contemporaries, and he bit his lips.
But the old Countess heard the news with the greatest indifference.

"Dead!" said she, "and I did not know it. We were appointed maids
of honor at the same time, and when we were presented to the
Empress--"

And the Countess for the hundredth time related to her grandson one
of her anecdotes.

"Come, Paul," said she, when she had finished her story, "help me
to get up. Lizanka,* where is my snuffbox?"