y like, but I mayn't. I don't
want to quarrel with my sisters, but I told my parents long ago that I
wish to change my social position. I have decided to take up teaching,
and I count on you because you said you loved children. Can we go in for
education together--if not at once, then afterwards? We could do good
together. I won't be a general's daughter any more! Tell me, are you a
very learned man?"

"Oh no; not at all."

"Oh-h-h! I'm sorry for that. I thought you were. I wonder why I always
thought so--but at all events you'll help me, won't you? Because I've
chosen you, you know."

"Aglaya Ivanovna, it's absurd."

"But I will, I WILL run away!" she cried--and her eyes flashed again
with anger--"and if you don't agree I shall go and marry Gavrila
Ardalionovitch! I won't be considered a horrible girl, and accused of
goodness knows what."

"Are you out of your mind?" cried the prince, almost starting from his
seat. "What do they accuse you of? Who accuses you?"

"At home, everybody, mother, my sisters, Prince S., even that detestable
Colia! If they don't say it, they think it. I told them all so to their
faces. I told mother and father and everybody. Mamma was ill all the
day after it, and next day father and Alexandra told me that I didn't
understand what nonsense I was talking. I informed them that they
little knew me--I was not a small child--I understood every word in the
language--that I had read a couple of Paul de Kok's novels two years
since on purpose, so as to know all about everything. No sooner did
mamma hear me say this than she nearly fainted!"

A strange thought passed through the prince's brain; he gazed intently
at Aglaya and smiled.

He could not believe that this was the same haughty young girl who had
once so proudly shown him Gania's letter. He could not understand how
that proud and austere beauty could show herself to be such an utter
child--a child who probably did not even now understand some words.

"Have you always lived at home, Aglaya Ivanovna?" he asked. "I mean,
have you never been to school, or college, or anything?"

"No--never--nowhere! I've been at home all my life, corked up in a
bottle; and they expect me to be married straight out of it. What are
you laughing at again? I observe that you, too, have taken to laughing
at me, and range yourself on their side against me," she added, frowning
angrily. "Don't irritate me--I'm bad enough without that--I don't know
what I am d