Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 5.djvu/59

Rh The curtains closed again.

" It is certainly not for me that she is putting on this dress for the first time," muttered the Count between his teeth whilst mounting the steps.

He introduced me to Madam Dowghiello, the aunt of the panna Iwinska, who received me courteously and spoke to me of my last articles in the Koenigsberg Scientific and Literary Gazette.

"The Professor has come to complain to you," said the Count, " of the malicious trick which Mademoiselle Ioulka played on him.

"She is a child, Professor; you must forgive her. She often drives me to distraction with her follies. I had more sense at sixteen than she has at twenty, but she is a good girl at heart, and she has many good qualities. She is an admirable musician, she paints flowers exquisitely, and she speaks French, German and Italian equally well, > . . She embroiders."

"And she composes Jmoudic verses," added the Count, laughing.

"She is incapable of it," exclaimed Madam Dowghiello; and they had to explain her niece's mischievousness.

Madam Dowghiello was weUll educated, and