Boris Lensky

ly independent on her income in Paris. Miss Wilmot, her fo

s Marie Antoinette on the poor sinner's car, it would, on the contrary, have been quite d

ch the Greeks loved to characterize their Diana statues. Her abundant hair, which is cut straight across her forehead and gathered up in a heavy knot on her neck, is of a light-b

them, eyes which suddenly darken, and then become strangely and unfathomably deep, as if she had tasted all the bitterness of creation, and in the next moment

her nature completely lacked that unrestrained, youthful exuberance, so her face, in spite of t

s she stands on the best footing, without letting herself be much influenced by them. "It would be very uncomfortable to me to be obliged to be as distinguished as the clan B?renburg," she used frequently to say, and preferred to say it to the face of th

ared it with a friend, a young Russian, of whom she is very fond. Nita's studio has two doors: one which leads directly out on the little court, and one which connects Nita's own sanctum with the great painting school of which Monsieur Sylvain is at the head. She has the k

sks Nita. "Has Monsieur

we are about to give hi

s of tea; that comes of it if one lives between an Englishwoman and a Russian. Well, give m

and bends listening over the copper tea-kettle, which stands

iously neat attempts by Sophie; beside those, a plaster cast of St. John, bas reliefs of Donatello, with many bits of picturesque old stuffs, and two or three Japanese crapes. Furniture is scarce: a divan, over which an old Persian rug is spread; a couple of comfortable chairs, mostly of cane,

tands half open. Idly waiting for the complet

her nibbles at a biscuit; a third, her hat already on her head and veil over her eyes, makes a correction on her p

is the Countess d'Olbreuse, a butterfly of fashion, who not o

g aside her brushes and addressing the lady at the piano. "Apr

phoned for twenty-four hours

e half-opened door between the

; "but what is the matter,

eminine existences. There! what an absent-minded being I am! Where is it?--a letter for you; perhaps it contains something interesting."

ose?" asks Nita, quite pleas

Nikolai Lensky, the son of the

n that you were related to Lensky,

He has recently come from St. Petersburg. He will soon come to see me; meanwhile he sends me two tickets to his father's concert day after t

r wh

with me to

--n

what are you

rom Madrid and missed a bull-fight in order to be present at Lensky's concert, and wh

you. I do not understand you, Nita--you who are so musical that you attend every conc

learned from his physician that his last hour had come, he said: 'Well, it is not agreeable to me, but still I have one consolation: I sha