ore
cautious. The air of these parts is very dangerous. How many handsome
young men, worthy of a better fate, have I not seen departing from here
straight to the altar!... Would you believe me, they were even going to
find a wife for me! That is to say, one person was--a lady belonging
to this district, who had a very pale daughter. I had the misfortune to
tell her that the latter's colour would be restored after wedlock, and
then with tears of gratitude she offered me her daughter's hand and the
whole of her own fortune--fifty souls, [28] I think. But I replied that
I was unfit for such an honour."

Werner left, fully convinced that he had put me on my guard.

I gathered from his words that various ugly rumours were already being
spread about the town on the subject of Princess Mary and myself:
Grushnitski shall smart for this!

CHAPTER XIII. 18th June.

I HAVE been in Kislovodsk three days now. Every day I see Vera at the
well and out walking. In the morning, when I awake, I sit by my window
and direct my lorgnette at her balcony. She has already been dressed
long ago, and is waiting for the signal agreed upon. We meet, as though
unexpectedly, in the garden which slopes down from our houses to the
well. The life-giving mountain air has brought back her colour and her
strength. Not for nothing is Narzan called the "Spring of Heroes." The
inhabitants aver that the air of Kislovodsk predisposes the heart to
love and that all the romances which have had their beginning at the
foot of Mount Mashuk find their consummation here. And, in very
fact, everything here breathes of solitude; everything has an air of
secrecy--the thick shadows of the linden avenues, bending over the
torrent which falls, noisy and foaming, from flag to flag and cleaves
itself a way between the mountains now becoming clad with verdure--the
mist-filled, silent ravines, with their ramifications straggling away
in all directions--the freshness of the aromatic air, laden with
the fragrance of the tall southern grasses and the white acacia--the
never-ceasing, sweetly-slumberous babble of the cool brooks, which,
meeting at the end of the valley, flow along in friendly emulation, and
finally fling themselves into the Podkumok. On this side, the ravine is
wider and becomes converted into a verdant dell, through which winds
the dusty road. Every time I look at it, I seem to see a carriage coming
along and a rosy little face looking out of the carriag