"And pray, why have you seen or heard of our darling stranger?" meanwhile inquired the in every respect amiable lady.

"Good Heaven! why am I sitting here like a silly girl! it\'s really absurd; but you don\'t know then, my dear Anna Grigorievna, what the cause of my early morning visit is?"

Here the respiration of the fair visitor became oppressed, the words threatened to burst forth in rapid succession like a hawk pursuing his prey, and it was only possible for a person such as her intimate friend was, to be so inhuman as to stop her overflowing heart.

"Whatever intention you may have of praising and exalting him," she said, in an unusual passion, "I shall mention and even tell himself if he likes, that he is but a frivolous man, and a very, very frivolous one indeed."

"But listen only, my dear child, what I am going to confide to you—"

"They have spread the report that he was handsome, and he is nothing of the kind, he is not handsome at all, and as for his nose—it is the ugliest nose I ever beheld."

"Allow me, but allow me only to tell you, my angelic Anna Grigorievna, suffer me to tell you all about him! It is a whole history, understand me well: I came here to give you a biographical sketch of the man who has created and still creates so great a sensation in Smolensk," her guest spoke with an expression approaching despair, and in a decidedly entreating, supplicating tone of voice.

"What do you know about him?"

"Oh, my darling Anna Grigorievna, if you could only know the awful position in which I have been placed, ever since the dawn of this eventful day; only imagine, this morning, very early indeed, the wife of our Proto-pope, of our worthy Father Kyrilla, arrives at my house, and would you ever have believed it—our much praised and gentlemanly stranger—no, I\'m sure you could not believe it!"

"What, has he been making love to the Proto-pope\'s wife?"

"Alas, Anna Grigorievna, it would have mattered little if he had been only doing that; listen now attentively to what the wife of our worthy Father Kyrilla has told me; she arrived early this morning at my house—as I told you before—she looked frightened and pale as death; she at last could open her lips and begin to speak; good Heavens, and how she spoke! Listen, dear, it is a perfect romance; suddenly, in the midst of a dark night, when all were fast asleep, a knock is heard at the gate, such a frightful knock, as it is only possible to imagine; some one shouts from outside; \'open the gates, open them, or else we shall break them down!\' how do you like the beginning? And especially, how do you like after this, our fêted stranger?"

"Well, no doubt the pope\'s wife is young and handsome!"

"Not at all, she is an old woman!"

"Ha, ha, ha, delightful! It is then with old women that he is flirting. After this, I may compliment our ladies in their choice, they have at last found some one to fall in love with!"

"But my dearest Anna Grigorievna, it is not at all what you fancy. Represent him to yourself as armed from head to foot in the style of Fra Diavolo, demanding; \'Sell me all your souls (serfs) that are dead!\' Lady Korobotchka answered very reasonably, indeed, by saying: \'I cannot sell them, because they are dead.\' \'No,\' says he again, \'they are not dead, it is my business to know whether they are dead or not; they are not dead, they are not dead!\' he shouts in a passion; in a word, he has created the greatest scandal imaginable. The whole village was in an uproar, the children crying, all others shouting, nobody could understand anybody, really, it was horror! horror! horror! But you would scarcely believe it, my dear Anna Grigorievna, how all this has upset me, when I came to hear it.

"\'Dear lady,\' says my chambermaid to me, \'pray look into the looking-glass, you\' are quite pale and discomfited.\'

"\'Never mind the looking-glass now, Maschinka,\' I said to her, \'I must now hasten and tell all to my dear Anna Grigorievna.\' At the same time I immediately ordered my carriage; my coachman, Karpuschka, asks me where he is to drive me to, and I felt so very much overwhelmed that I could not articulate a word, I stared him in the face quite foolishly; I think the man believed me mad at the time. Ah, my dear Anna Grigorievna, if you could only but imagine bow much frightened and distracted I feel even now."

"This is rather strange," said the in every respect amiable lady. "What can these dead souls mean? I must confess, I cannot imagine or understand anything in this really strange affair. This is already the second time that I have heard about these dead serfs; my husband assures me that Nosdrieff told another of his falsehoods; however, there must be something at the bottom of it."

"But, dearest Anna Grigorievna, can you imagine for a moment my position when I heard of all this. Listen farther!

"And now," continued Lady Korobotchka, \'I really do not know what am I to do. He obliged me,\' says she, \'to sign my name to an apparently forged document, threw fifteen roubles in bank notes before me, on the table, and I,\' she says, \'inexperienced and unprotected woman, took them.\' This is the whole of the dreadful occurrence! But if you could but I feel, even now!

"Whatever you may say or think about it, I assert that there are no dead serfs in question; but there is something else hidden."

"I agree with you," replied the simply amiable lady, not without some surprise, and felt immediately an unconquerable desire to know what might be hidden under this strange affair. She pronounced the following words in a slow and measured tone of voice: "And what do you really think is hidden under the pretence of purchasing dead serfs?"

"Pray, tell me first what you think of it?"

"Oh, what I think of it—I—I really must confess, I feel still quite bewildered from the news."

"Nevertheless, I should have very much liked to know what your opinion upon the subject is?"

However, the simply amiable lady could find no opinion to express. She only knew how to be full of anxiety; but to imagine a complicated supposition was an impossibility to her, and for that reason, more than any other woman, she was obliged to have resource to tender friendship and suggestions.

"Well, listen then to me, and I will tell you what these dead souls mean," said the in every respect amiable lady, and her guest concentrated all her attention upon hearing; her little ears became, if possible, longer, she rose slightly from her seat, nearly not sitting nor leaning on the sofa, and regardless of her slight embonpoint, she became suddenly lighter, similar to a feather ready to fly away at the least breath.

"These dead souls are—" pronounced the in every respect amiable lady.

"What, what?" interrupted her guest, full of emotion.

"The dead serfs!"

"Oh, speak! for Heaven\'s sake speak."

"They are simply a pretext, but the real truth is the following; he intends to run away with the daughter of the Lord-Lieutenant of Smolensk."

This conclusion was perfectly sudden and unexpected, and in every respect very extraordinary.

Scarcely had the simply amiable lady heard the conclusion her friend had arrived at, when she stood there like a statue, grew pale, pale as death, and this time really and seriously seemed to be distracted and bewildered. "Oh, good Heavens!" she exclai............