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 how foolishly she shrieked," said he to himself, as he recalled her cry and the words "infamous" and "paramour"!

"Perhaps the chambermaids heard her! horribly foolish, horribly!"

Stepan Arkadyevitch stood by himself a few seconds, rubbed his eyes, sighed, and then, throwing out his chest, left the room.

It was Friday, and in the dining-room the German clock-maker was winding the clock. Stepan Arkadyevitch remembered a joke that he had made about this punctilious German clock-maker, to the effect that "he must have been wound up himself for a lifetime for the purpose of winding clocks," and he smiled. Stepan Arkadyevitch loved a good joke. "Perhaps it will straighten itself out. That's a good little phrase! straighten itself out," he thought; "I must tell that."

"Matve!" he shouted; and when the old servant appeared, he said, "Have Marya put the best room in order for Anna Arkadyevna."

"Very well."

Stepan Arkadyevitch took his fur coat, and started down the steps.

"Shall you dine at home?" asked Matve, as he escorted him down.

"That depends. Here, take this if you need to spend anything," said he, taking out a bill of ten rubles from his pocket-book. "That will be enough."

"Whether it is enough or not, it will have to do," said Matve, as he shut the carriage-door and went up the steps.

Meantime, Darya Aleksandrovna, having pacified the child, and knowing by the sound of the carriage that he was gone, came back to her room. This was her sole refuge from the domestic troubles that besieged her as soon as she went out. Even during the short time that she had been in the nursery, the English maid and Matriona Filimonovna asked her all sorts of questions demanding immediate attention, questions which she alone could answer,—what clothes should they put on