bell; while a priest attired in ancient gold, went and came before the
altar reciting orisons of which one heard not a single word. Surely,
that was Dom Balaguère in the act of saying his third low Mass.




_A Love-Passage from a Wandering Cossack._


"Dressed in his everlasting blue frock, he sat near the fire
playing cards."

_Turgenieff._




A RUSSIAN CHRISTMAS PARTY.


Count Rostow's affairs were going from bad to worse. He was of a warm,
generous nature, with unlimited faith in his servants, and hence was
blind to the mismanagement and dishonesty which had sapped his fortune.
The possessor of a handsome establishment at the Russian capital,
Moscow, the owner of rich provincial estates, and the inheritor of a
noble name and wealth, he was nevertheless on the verge of ruin. He had
given up his appointment as _Maréchal de la Noblesse_, which he had gone
to his seat of Otradnoë to assume, because it entailed too many
expenses; and yet there was no improvement in the state of his finances.