[Dark Saint Alaick]

II


The old Countess A---- was seated in her dressing-room in front of her
looking--glass. Three waiting maids stood around her. One held a small
pot of rouge, another a box of hair-pins, and the third a tall can
with bright red ribbons. The Countess had no longer the slightest
pretensions to beauty, but she still preserved the habits of her
youth, dressed in strict accordance with the fashion of seventy years
before, and made as long and as careful a toilette as she would have
done sixty years previously. Near the window, at an embroidery frame,
sat a young lady, her ward.

"Good morning, grandmamma," said a young officer, entering the room.
"_Bonjour, Mademoiselle Lise_. Grandmamma, I want to ask you
something."

"What is it, Paul?"

"I want you to let me introduce one of my friends to you, and to allow
me to bring him to the ball on Friday."

"Bring him direct to the ball and introduce him to me there. Were you
at B----'s yesterday?"

"Yes; everything went off very pleasantly, and dancing was kept up
until five o'clock. How charming Yeletzkaya was!"

"But, my dear, what is there charming about her? Isn't she like her
grandmother, the Princess Daria Petrovna? By the way, she must be very
old, the Princess Daria Petrovna."

"How do you mean, old?" cried Tomsky thoughtlessly; "she died seven
years ago."

The young lady raised her head and made a sign to the young officer.
He then remembered that the old Countess was never to be informed of
the death of any of her contemporaries, and he bit his lips. But the
old Countess heard the news with the greatest indifference.

"Dead!" said she; "and I did not know it. We were appointed maids of
honour at the same time, and when we were presented to the Empress..."