y little thing, and speaking to
her with colder formality. Sometimes she reproached herself for these
continual pin-pricks of annoyance, and was quite vexed with the poor
girl for submitting to them with such wonderful humility and sweetness,
for taking every opportunity of showing her devoted gratitude, and for
loving Nicolas with a faithful and disinterested affection which
commanded her admiration.

Just about this time a letter came from Prince Andre, dated from Rome,
whither he had gone to pass the year of probation demanded by his father
as a condition to giving consent to his son's marriage with the Countess
Natacha. It was the fourth the Prince had written since his departure.
He ought long since to have been on his way home, he said, but the heat
of the summer had caused the wound he had received at Austerlitz to
reopen, and this compelled him to postpone his return till early in
January.

Natacha, though she was so much in love that her very passion for Prince
Andre had made her day-dreams happy, had hitherto been open to all the
bright influences of her young life; but now, after nearly four months
of parting, she fell into a state of extreme melancholy, and gave way to
it completely. She bewailed her hard fate, she bewailed the time that
was slipping away and lost to her, while her heart ached with the dull
craving to love and be loved. Nicolas, too, had nearly spent his leave
from his regiment, and the anticipation of his departure added gloom to
the saddened household.

Christmas came; but, excepting the pompous high Mass and the other
religious ceremonies, the endless string of neighbors and servants with
the regular compliments of the season, and the new gowns which made
their first appearance on the occasion, nothing more than usual happened
on that day, or more extraordinary than twenty degrees of frost, with
brilliant sunshine, a still atmosphere, and at night a glorious starry
sky.

After dinner, on the third day of Christmas-tide, when every one had
settled into his own corner once more, ennui reigned supreme throughout
the house. Nicolas, who had been paying a round of visits in the
neighborhood, was fast asleep in the drawing-room. The old count had
followed his example in his room. Sonia, seated at a table in the
sitting-room, was copying a drawing. The countess was playing out a
"patience," and Nastacia Ivanovna, the old buffoon, with his peevish
face, sitting in a window with two old women