nute!' cried Alexandra Pavlovna, 'when are
you coming to see us?'

'To-morrow; my greetings to your brother.'

And the droshky rolled away.

Alexandra Pavlovna looked after Mihailo Mihailitch.

'What a sack!' she thought. Sitting huddled up and covered with dust,
his cap on the back of his head and tufts of flaxen hair straggling from
beneath it, he looked strikingly like a huge sack of flour.

Alexandra Pavlovna turned tranquilly back along the path homewards. She
was walking with downcast eyes. The tramp of a horse near made her stop
and raise her head.... Her brother had come on horseback to meet her;
beside him was walking a young man of medium height, wearing a light
open coat, a light tie, and a light grey hat, and carrying a cane in his
hand. He had been smiling for a long time at Alexandra Pavlovna, even
though he saw that she was absorbed in thought and noticing nothing, and
when she stopped he went up to her and in a tone of delight, almost of
emotion, cried:

'Good-morning, Alexandra Pavlovna, good-morning!'

'Ah! Konstantin Diomiditch! good-morning!' she replied. 'You have come
from Darya Mihailovna?'

'Precisely so, precisely so,' rejoined the young man with a radiant
face, 'from Darya Mihailovna. Darya Mihailovna sent me to you; I
preferred to walk.... It's such a glorious morning, and the distance
is only three miles. When I arrived, you were not at home. Your brother
told me you had gone to Semenovka; and he was just going out to the
fields; so you see I walked with him to meet you. Yes, yes. How very
delightful!'

The young man spoke Russian accurately and grammatically but with a
foreign accent, though it was difficult to determine exactly what accent
it was. In his features there was something Asiatic. His long hook
nose, his large expressionless prominent eyes, his thick red lips,
and retreating forehead, and his jet black hair,--everything about him
suggested an Oriental extraction; but the young man gave his surname as
Pandalevsky and spoke of Odessa as his birthplace, though he was brought
up somewhere in White Russia at the expense of a rich and benevolent
widow.

Another widow had obtained a government post for him. Middle-aged ladies
were generally ready to befriend Konstantin Diomiditch; he knew well how
to court them and was successful in coming across them. He was at
this very time living with a rich lady, a landowner, Darya Mihailovna
Lasunsky, in a position between that of a g