nd taking his leave.

The Countess Anna Fedorovna was seated before her mirror in her
dressing-room. Three women were assisting at her toilet. The old
Countess no longer made the slightest pretensions to beauty, but she
still clung to all the habits of her youth, and spent as much time at
her toilet as she had done sixty years before. At the window a young
girl, her ward, sat at her needlework.

"Good afternoon, grandmother," cried a young officer, who had just
entered the room. "I have come to ask a favor of you."

"What, Pavel?"

"I want to be allowed to present one of my friends to you, and to take
you to the ball on Tuesday night."

"Take me to the ball and present him to me there."

After a few more remarks the officer walked up to the window where
Lisaveta Ivanovna sat.

"Whom do you wish to present?" asked the girl.

"Naroumov; do you know him?"

"No; is he a soldier?"

"Yes."

"An engineer?"

"No; why do you ask?"

The girl smiled and made no reply.

Pavel Tomsky took his leave, and, left to herself, Lisaveta glanced
out of the window. Soon, a young officer appeared at the corner of the
street; the girl blushed and bent her head low over her canvas.

This appearance of the officer had become a daily occurrence. The man
was totally unknown to her, and as she was not accustomed to coquetting
with the soldiers she saw on the street, she hardly knew how to explain
his presence. His persistence finally roused an interest entirely
strange to her. One day, she even ventured to smile upon her admirer,
for such he seemed to be.

The reader need hardly be told that the officer was no other than
Herman, the would-be gambler, whose imagination had been strongly
excited by the story told by Tomsky of the three magic cards.

"Ah," he thought, "if the old Countess would only reveal the secret to
me. Why not try to win her good-will and appeal to her sympathy?"

With this idea in mind, he took up his daily station before the house,
watching the pretty face at the window, and trusting to fate to bring
about the desired acquaintance.

One day, as Lisaveta was standing on the pavement about to enter the
carriage after the Countess, she felt herself jostled and a note was
thrust into her hand. Turning, she saw the young officer at her elbow.
As quick as thought, she put the note in her glove and entered the
carriage. On her return from the drive, she hastened to her chamber to
read the missive, in a state