g you very
urgently to be so good as to dine with her to-day. She is expecting a
new guest whom she particularly wishes you to meet.'

'Who is it?'

'A certain Muffel, a baron, a gentleman of the bed-chamber from
Petersburg. Darya Mihailovna made his acquaintance lately at the Prince
Garin's, and speaks of him in high terms as an agreeable and cultivated
young man. His Excellency the baron is interested, too, in literature,
or more strictly speaking----ah! what an exquisite butterfly! pray look
at it!----more strictly speaking, in political economy. He has written
an essay on some very interesting question, and wants to submit it to
Darya Mihailovna's criticism.'

'An article on political economy?'

'From the literary point of view, Alexandra Pavlovna, from the literary
point of view. You are well aware, I suppose, that in that line Darya
Mihailovna is an authority. Zhukovsky used to ask her advice, and
my benefactor, who lives at Odessa, that benevolent old man, Roxolan
Mediarovitch Ksandrika----No doubt you know the name of that eminent
man?'

'No; I have never heard of him.'

'You never heard of such a man? surprising! I was going to say that
Roxolan Mediarovitch always had the very highest opinion of Darya
Mihailovna's knowledge of Russian!

'Is this baron a pedant then?' asked Alexandra Pavlovna.

'Not in the very least. Darya Mihailovna says, on the contrary, that you
see that he belongs to the best society at once. He spoke of Beethoven
with such eloquence that even the old prince was quite delighted by it.
That, I own, I should like to have heard; you know that is in my line.
Allow me to offer you this lovely wild-flower.'

Alexandra Pavlovna took the flower, and when she had walked a few steps
farther, let it drop on the path. They were not more than two hundred
paces from her house. It had been recently built and whitewashed, and
looked out hospitably with its wide light windows from the thick foliage
of the old limes and maples.

'So what message do you give me for Darya Mihailovna?' began
Pandalevsky, slightly hurt at the fate of the flower he had given her.
'Will you come to dinner? She invites your brother too.'

'Yes; we will come, most certainly. And how is Natasha?'

'Natalya Alexyevna is well, I am glad to say. But we have already passed
the road that turns off to Darya Mihailovna's. Allow me to bid you
good-bye.'

Alexandra Pavlovna stopped. 'But won't you come in?' she said in a
hes