embarrassing--business to accompany the Grandmother to the
Casino, where, very likely, she would perpetrate further
eccentricities, and in public too! Yet on their own initiative
they had offered to escort her!

"Why should I rest?" she retorted. "I am not tired, for I
have been sitting still these past five days. Let us see what
your medicinal springs and waters are like, and where they are
situated. What, too, about that, that--what did you call it,
Prascovia?--oh, about that mountain top?"

"Yes, we are going to see it, Grandmamma."

"Very well. Is there anything else for me to see here?"

"Yes! Quite a number of things," Polina forced herself to say.

"Martha, YOU must come with me as well," went on the old lady
to her maid.

"No, no, mother!" ejaculated the General. "Really she cannot
come. They would not admit even Potapitch to the Casino."

"Rubbish! Because she is my servant, is that a reason for
turning her out? Why, she is only a human being like the rest of
us; and as she has been travelling for a week she might like to
look about her. With whom else could she go out but myself ? She
would never dare to show her nose in the street alone."

"But, mother--"