changed for the better?" asked Mrs. Epanchin. "I don't see
any change for the better! What's better in him? Where did you get THAT
idea from? WHAT'S better?"

"There's nothing better than the 'poor knight'!" said Colia, who was
standing near the last speaker's chair.

"I quite agree with you there!" said Prince S., laughing.

"So do I," said Adelaida, solemnly.

"WHAT poor knight?" asked Mrs. Epanchin, looking round at the face of
each of the speakers in turn. Seeing, however, that Aglaya was blushing,
she added, angrily:

"What nonsense you are all talking! What do you mean by poor knight?"

"It's not the first time this urchin, your favourite, has shown his
impudence by twisting other people's words," said Aglaya, haughtily.

Every time that Aglaya showed temper (and this was very often), there
was so much childish pouting, such "school-girlishness," as it were, in
her apparent wrath, that it was impossible to avoid smiling at her, to
her own unutterable indignation. On these occasions she would say, "How
can they, how DARE they laugh at me?"

This time everyone laughed at her, her sisters, Prince S., Prince
Muishkin (though he himself had flushed for some reason), and Colia.
Aglaya was dreadfully indignant, and looked twice as pretty in her
wrath.

"He's always twisting round what one says," she cried.

"I am only repeating your own exclamation!" said Colia. "A month ago you
were turning over the pages of your Don Quixote, and suddenly called out
'there is nothing better than the poor knight.' I don't know whom
you were referring to, of course, whether to Don Quixote, or Evgenie
Pavlovitch, or someone else, but you certainly said these words, and
afterwards there was a long conversation..."

"You are inclined to go a little too far, my good boy, with your
guesses," said Mrs. Epanchin, with some show of annoyance.

"But it's not I alone," cried Colia. "They all talked about it, and they
do still. Why, just now Prince S. and Adelaida Ivanovna declared that
they upheld 'the poor knight'; so evidently there does exist a 'poor
knight'; and if it were not for Adelaida Ivanovna, we should have known
long ago who the 'poor knight' was."

"Why, how am I to blame?" asked Adelaida, smiling.

"You wouldn't draw his portrait for us, that's why you are to blame!
Aglaya Ivanovna asked you to draw his portrait, and gave you the whole
subject of the picture. She invented it herself; and you wouldn't."

"What was I t