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 you and I should not be annoyed without reason," said he, with a phrase evidently ready on his tongue.

Stepan Arkadyevitch perceived that Matve wanted to make some jesting reply and attract attention to himself. Tearing open the telegram, he read it, using his wits to make out the words, that were as usual blindly written, and his face brightened.

...."Matve, sister Anna Arkadyevna will be here to-morrow," said he, staying for a moment the plump gleaming hand of his barber, who was making a pink path through his long, curly whiskers.

"Thank God," cried Matve, showing by this exclamation that he understood as well as his master the significance of this arrival, that it meant that Anna Arkadyevna, Prince Stepan's loving sister, might effect a reconciliation between husband and wife.

"Alone, or with her husband?" asked Matve.

Stepan Arkadyevitch could not speak, as the barber was engaged on his upper lip, but he lifted one finger. Matve nodded his head toward the mirror.

"Alone. Get her room ready?"

"Report to Darya Aleksandrovna, and let her decide."

"To Darya Aleksandrovna?" repeated Matve, rather skeptically.

"Yes! report to her. And here, take the telegram, give it to her, and do as she says."

"You want to try an experiment," was the thought in Matve's mind; but he only said, "I will obey!"

By this time Stepan Arkadyevitch had finished his bath and his toilet, and was just putting on his clothes, when Matve, stepping slowly with squeaking boots, and with the telegram in his hand, returned to the room. The barber was no longer there.

"Darya Aleksandrovna bade me tell you she is going away .... do just as he—as you—please about it," said Matve, with a smile lurking in his eyes. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, and bending his head to one side, he looked at his master. Stepan Arkadyevitch was silent. Then a good-humored and rather pitiful smile lighted up his handsome face.