d both
of them burst into irrepressible laughter.

Adelaida had long since detected in Aglaya's features the gathering
signs of an approaching storm of laughter, which she restrained with
amazing self-control.

Aglaya looked menacingly at her laughing sisters, but could not contain
herself any longer, and the next minute she too had burst into an
irrepressible, and almost hysterical, fit of mirth. At length she jumped
up, and ran out of the room.

"I knew it was all a joke!" cried Adelaida. "I felt it ever since--since
the hedgehog."

"No, no! I cannot allow this,--this is a little too much," cried
Lizabetha Prokofievna, exploding with rage, and she rose from her seat
and followed Aglaya out of the room as quickly as she could.

The two sisters hurriedly went after her.

The prince and the general were the only two persons left in the room.

"It's--it's really--now could you have imagined anything like it, Lef
Nicolaievitch?" cried the general. He was evidently so much agitated
that he hardly knew what he wished to say. "Seriously now, seriously I
mean--"

"I only see that Aglaya Ivanovna is laughing at me," said the poor
prince, sadly.

"Wait a bit, my boy, I'll just go--you stay here, you know. But do just
explain, if you can, Lef Nicolaievitch, how in the world has all this
come about? And what does it all mean? You must understand, my dear
fellow; I am a father, you see, and I ought to be allowed to understand
the matter--do explain, I beg you!"

"I love Aglaya Ivanovna--she knows it,--and I think she must have long
known it."

The general shrugged his shoulders.

"Strange--it's strange," he said, "and you love her very much?"

"Yes, very much."

"Well--it's all most strange to me. That is--my dear fellow, it is
such a surprise--such a blow--that... You see, it is not your financial
position (though I should not object if you were a bit richer)--I am
thinking of my daughter's happiness, of course, and the thing is--are
you able to give her the happiness she deserves? And then--is all this
a joke on her part, or is she in earnest? I don't mean on your side, but
on hers."

At this moment Alexandra's voice was heard outside the door, calling out
"Papa!"

"Wait for me here, my boy--will you? Just wait and think it all over,
and I'll come back directly," he said hurriedly, and made off with what
looked like the rapidity of alarm in response to Alexandra's call.

He found the mother and daughter lo