meizitang helps us dissolve distressing emotions

To see beautiful women live more moisture, so why? Beautiful beautiful natural a call over a hundred cars to shuttle her to pick. You na? Crowded bus dragged the bloated body and an attempt to hide the obesity thick coat? Slowly or in the cold only braved the risk of drift car late? The other woman can slim down why you did not! Are you an idiot? You are born in relation to when the pig? The woman does not own cruel, men will be cruel to a woman. Do not you like to be on your unsightly body pointing? Even when it is very tough, we can still face difficulties confidently with the help of meizitang.

in the most difficult of times,  meizitangcan go a long way toward making us become slim. Like looking at the boys they like their disgust of the girls away? Like their stout legs go into the day in front of the mast pants? Like summer wear package was dead tight clothes sweating walking in under the hot sun? Like the woman wearing the attire you wear into the side of the face is ugly, but very thin? Weight 3-digit woman has no future! Only a little hard on their own! Do not lose weight are not allowed to buy new clothes! Not lose weight are not allowed to do hair! You have been doing a soil through the gas clothes dregs of dead fat!


meizitang helps us dissolve distressing emotions. Try not to eat when trying to advise you to get something to eat to take care of the body, she was looking for an excuse! ! ! Ate is also prime, and the symbolic point!No way! People thin people! Stomach and small! Do not exercise restraint on the life the envy of others! To control appetite, eat a can how to die why? They eat is the capital, a dead fat man, when you did not lose weight, but only those hungry, you do not own ruthless, others hard for you!  When you desire a better figure is far greater than your desire for food, you can successfully lose weight.

If you really unfortunate to suffer from eating disorders

Then your body may have become accustomed to a continuous mode of stored fat. Same principle, when you so that your body is hungry, it will go into survival self-help mode. Because he believes that there may be famine, and to store fat in your cells, "just in case". Over time, your body begins to extract more fat from your food intake. As a result, could have only containing a few grams of fat weight loss foods rely on lasagna, if you developed mealtimes and not hungry after eating it, your body will do its utmost to absorb all fat and stored for later use. Effective meizitang unites fat people during difficult times.

Effective meizitang brings joy into your life.  Suppress their desire alive, why so hard? Lost you will be able to solve all problems?The standard diet is not a long time to suppress your appetite and make you feel a little hard.I also feel very pain ah, eat, think, and this will have a high heat, can not ate, the stars still can not help but eat, eat, you'll regret it.Our hostel's sister after her diet led to bulimia eat a lot of eat sleep kept. The original is not fat now. . . . Terror. I think they should figure out a good scale. Not suitable for the key in their own. If you really unfortunate to suffer from eating disorders.

Recently to a study in Switzerland, when the human was blindfolded, the food they eat Bi able to see things a decrease of 25%. In other words, when they do not look at the food children fully concentrate on the taste and texture of the food they actually eat less. Consistent with this and I noticed in the weight-loss course. After lunch, people reported that their food is delicious, because many years, they implemented the first time is very slow and conscious eating. Eat, they do taste the food and feel the feeling fed. Your fear of holding back can be released by  effective meizitang.

meizitang is becoming a serious health problem

After the United States acquired the promotion of the products in the world was a great success in Europe 3 U.S. market accounted for 30% to 50% of the market share of the weight loss drugs, 50% market share in Hong Kong, Taiwan 70 percent in China in 2001, but suffered a crisis in Italy recall events, as well as domestic generic violations such as mass advertising of the drug manufacturers a series of the Gui adverse events have had to stop selling the drug business in urgent need of a new growth point, the company decided, such as some areas in mainland China in 2007. meizitang is becoming a serious health problem.

The incidence of significant changes with gender, age, socio-economic status and ethnicity. women was 35%, 31% in men and between 20-55 years of age the incidence of more than 2 times. Among women, obesity and socio-economic situation is extremely relevant, lower socio-economic status of women is often higher socio-economic status of women, although the prevalence among black and white men there was no significant difference, but Obesity in black women than white women in general, the incidence of 33% compared with white women, it affects 60% of middle-aged black women. obesity has now become a global epidemic in Europe.

In Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places the re-launch the product, whether to proceed with a national promotion and the sales situation, the original intention of this project. 1.3 the concept of obesity and its hazards of obesity is a chronic disease of the excessive accumulation of fat in a physical as well as a threat to health, the World Health Organization (WHO ) was officially announced that obesity is a disease of high prevalence of obesity in the United States, and rising over the past 10 years, the total incidence rate increased from 25% to 33%, an increase of 1/3 in 1999. It engenders a great potential meizitang treatment market.

strong will are the prerequisites of successful weight loss

In fact, after three months treatment with meizitang, most people can reduce their target excess weight.  But most importantly, time and time again " day Apple menu, muscle loss, then our metabolism also reduces the daily consumption of the body will significantly reduce, this would mean that you are more difficult to lose weight or gain weight more easily, and the next weight loss will be more difficult to - This is really bad news! Therefore, it is recommended that babies are not to be tried lightly; poor health of the baby, especially not try to - we want to gracefully lose weight, and not a "reckless," hitting the wall.

Today eat a lot, will eat for a week, while we silly every day to eat intestinal collapse crack belly, stomach greatly drops, so lose weight when eating a normal amount of food will feel hungry, it is a mess of perception of the illusion of an illusion, fat paper so little self-control and reason to lose weight before or they get it back!I surrendered then a little lost and out of control, eating potato chips, chocolate, dried mango, coconut piece in the diet the mid Han snacks write into, and now want to up delicious? Han taste? Forget! Eat ginseng fruit and Pig, has been their own sewer then down, think about the painful past and cut into my body recover Ah ....A reasonable diet, and meizitang, and strong will are the prerequisites of successful weight loss.

The result is back pain leg cramps three days, because my upper body fat, large chest, and hated sports. My biological mother in September this year, Yin Si ran for their units have a personal swimming looked thin down. Provoked endless fantasy, because I love swimming dreaming the dream of their own diving is swimming, I tonnage of the most suitable movement, coupled with the inherent advantages of swimming drops. Results Fudge was my mother swimming in the river swim is very acid, very tired, but the movement time is happy.  Sharp weight loss by taking meizitang is not conducive to health.

Which are the best-selling meizitang products

Is my school, it has been fat, I rely on? ? ?En. Can run 10,000 meters in one hour as a target.I think perhaps in the near future we can achieve. Expresses its appreciation to you within 50 minutes to run 8000 meters.I recently lost weight too fast, there is no run ten thousand meters.   As far as everyone is concerned, meizitang should suit for each individual person. Founding the sit-ups. Two days or to continue running meters of To create a rule, for example, to run four days time, or run a horse break one God. If one day I lost, I will not head down to wal. If one day I lost, I will no longer fear the gaze of others.

If one day I lost, I think careful note of the hardships of the past but with a smile instead of tears .If one day I lost, I would like more care of their body .If one day I lost, I would like to encourage those who still adhere to the sisters .If one day I lost, I would like to proudly tell the parents to their daughter perseverance .Do not worry. If one day I lost, I would not like other thin girls, like laughing at Xiao Panmei If one day I lost, I will not be too proud to mighty .If one day I lost, I will not be afraid to put their own photos to show people .  There are a wide variety of meizitang products on the market.

Which are the best-selling meizitang products?  If one day I lost, I will not disgust once fat .If one day I lost, I will not leave this warm family .If one day I lost, I will not forget the boyfriend never betray my .If one day I lost, that proved a fat girl transformation. Never again carrying the heavy shackles of. Not only for clothes, not only for food, not just for love. By such a troubled life only once, we do not. Love yourself, love life. In order to refuel me and my loved ones, and all who care about me ~Took off his long trousers, put on shorts. I decided to run counterclockwise, west ran. Because of the colder, I just

Nowadays, meizitang is quite popular among younger generations

Nowadays, meizitang is quite popular among younger generations. Now found that the fruit is delicious. For example, grapes, papaya, peaches, pears, apples, persimmons, jujube (the original does not like to eat), pineapple, lychee, tomatoes (the original does not like), basically God immediately eat Shenma in. Began to eat the eggs. I was concerned that cholesterol, eggs do not eat much, and now boiled eggs every morning. Reduced from two to one. (Exercise, do not worry about cholesterol.) Started drinking milk. Start food calories. 10 to reduce the amount of the same time, a substantial increase in the types of food.

Eat in the unit, the original, plus rice twice, is now under control in between 300-500 grams a day, is two per pound. (4) less meat, eat more vegetables. A variety of vegetables are beginning to eat. (6) a significant increase in the fruit. That in addition to the watermelon, oranges, bananas, etc., is almost impossible to eat fruit. Now found that the fruit is delicious. For example, grapes, papaya, peaches, pears, apples, persimmons, jujube (the original does not like to eat), pineapple, lychee, tomatoes (the original does not like), basically God immediately eat Shenma in. We may often hear that even Sister Furong becomes thin, are you still being willing to be fat without taking meizitang?

By using meizitang, your job of losing weight will surely become easier.A lot of men vegetarian non-stick column one to go, who is seen directly vegetarian wood appetite. I had not to eat vegetables. Later, because of the constipation, obesity, and other reasons, began to eat vegetarian, eating eating habits. Quickly fell in love with eating vegetables and fruits. My refrigerator filled with a variety of fruits and vegetables, as well as beef. Short, low-calorie, high protein, high fiber, high in vitamins, stuff, and now are my favorites. Must attack to lose weight. Each one can take advantage of the time to lose weight!

meizitang in many cases goes along with weight-reducing

meizitang in many cases goes along with weight-reducing. Feeling the body seemed to be the chair to slide down, relax arched tread waist, waist to try to paste the chair surface.  Next, the abdomen should be forced, count to 10 slowly, legs stretched forward, the toes must be upward, so that the body in a straight line;  Count to 5, bend your knees, thigh, back to the original position.  Note  Back, shoulders and arms should be relaxed, and feel that stomach in the force.      The first group  Turns to do the action of the ride bicycles, feet, leg muscles to relax, to require a foot down the stretch, the lower the better.

 And the fact that no matter what sort of ways to lose weight, vitamin supplement can not be ignored. Diet means to lose weight, eat less food, and it gets so that the intake of various vitamins are also less likely to cause a variety of vitamin deficiency symptoms, resulting in weight loss effects. In fact, the vitamin itself has no calories, and some also help energy metabolism, such as vitamin B complex B1, B2, B6 and B12 are able to promote the metabolism of fat, protein, carbohydrate, with burning fat, to avoid the accumulation of fat the effectiveness of .  Taking meizitang can significantly reduce the number of behavioral and emotional disorders. 

Taking meizitang help emotionally disturbed obese people become happy.  The main source of these vitamins are whole grains, fruits and vegetables and milk and eggs, especially whole grains, low in calories, vitamins and advantages, people who lose weight often do not eat, in fact, use whole grains instead, not only a sense of satiety and help lose weight. Currently the most popular beer yeast, but also because of the vitamin B group weight loss san products. Obesity is a metabolic imbalance in the state. The vitamin B group is the impact of important nutrients for our body metabolism, vitamin B complex intake will lead to obesity.

Meizitang effectively reduce the efficiency

Meizitang plant can effectively metabolic cold person. I have little lover wheat and wheat bread perfume delicious, not consider parts, I really want to have a cake hydrolysis the bag eats. To cream rice is more than ever need to spend rice neutralization delicieux used to eating flower butter or caramel popcorn tired stagnation, heating, spare parts, microwave oven and heat don't eat a lot. I know, don't have to worry about this idea of many friends and health is very sensitive, but fast food producer fat and shrimp don't always is a taste of suffering, is still a serious problem.

In fact, when you know that food taboo calories fast food, then health delicious snacks natural not fat fast food. Meizitang effective can help those who have cold. The children food fat day, over a long period of time, you are, even if ZhaShuTiao dessert table, it may be hard to do taste. Just like me, even though many snacks before, I did not think the opposite situation, all the food, and sometimes even uneasiness.

Meizitang effectively reduce the efficiency. I suggest you research, such as fixed or habit before the second day morning, you operators with more accurately reflected in your efforts. If there is no search someone plans and best all pounds of time, you can close state of the progress, and your food and (or) plan of clinical practice. But if you do you recommend the best each a dietitian obesity, last week, because for a long time, the most obvious difference is books, more energetic and determination to continue to work hard.

A plenty of meizitang products have been exported overseas

A plenty of meizitang products have been exported overseas. The same year, Nanjing, Australia Pharmaceutical Limited The capsule of the Secretary, "O light, the Hang Seng pharmaceutical capsules in Nanjing" Show, Guilin Jiqi Pharmaceutical tablets "kiosk up", Hainan General Yang medicine sibutramine have been approved for production. To October 2008 SFDA has approved 16 enterprises production of pharmaceutical raw materials, 21 production Preparations. In February 2001, German Keno pharmaceutical companies sibutramine capsules, Certificate of Incorporation of the Food and Drug Administration (SFDA).
to Trade name "the Connaught America Pavilion (Reductil) listed in our country. 2004 Abbott, GmbH & Co.KG, received SFDA approval in China Listed. After a few short years, the song America capsule and O light capsule has Well-known brands in the diet on the market. A historic step has been made in the development of meizitang. the country had reached annual sales of 8 A 10 billion market size. However, in product promotion, and production Product awareness and level of consumption under the influence, domestic regional markets accounted for There are a large amount of difference.
1998 listing of the year to create A 1 .54 billion dollars in sales performance. 2000 Meridia global city The field has reached $ 174 million, increased to $ 272 million in 2002, In the five years prior to listing, annual average growth rate of nearly 20 Sibutramine is a 5 - Light serotonin and norepinephrine re- Uptake inhibitors, a major role in the human central nervous system. In the control through Excess fat intake, increased lipolysis and strengthen the energy consumption Play a role played by suppressing appetite, increasing the sense of fullness to reduce into Food, weight loss to achieve weight loss. Some people after treatment. After about ten years’ development, a series of meizitang products have been promoted.

Chocolate contains a large number of production quantity

Chocolate contains a large number of production quantity, phenethylamine love in human health and ethylamine euphoria chocolate. Spirit, dine after the fall, reduce depression, against. Although can greatly reduce meizitang effective blood cholesterol levels. Metabolism and improve. 2 knowledge a. chocolate choose dark chocolate, best, about 75% of the cocoa. Try to purchase high quality satisfactory, dark chocolate flavor cocoa and quality control.

The kitchen facilities: provide breakfast, lunch, in the principle of nutrition knowledge to increase vegetable soup balanced new changes. 4 to 5 then boiling glue not limited to hope to enlarge, the chicken broth. If you want to avoid excessive ZhiMaYou oil, spices sauce, etc. Expiry date should be: diet, resume normal work week after a week vegetable soup formula regulation, abdomen after implementation are all adapted to vegetable soup can be subtle. Effective meizitang vitamin can reduce the pigment stains.
Although maintain effective meizitang cardiovascular system normal running. Food, saying, we found that grade and direct control of self-control. Love to eat candy and catering chocolate, really very difficult. There is a lack of dessert foods? ZhaoWei. Chocolate is since, but are dark chocolate. Dark chocolate appropriate obesity is very useful, because chocolate desir) can satisfy the candy, taste. 100 grams of dark chocolate requirements, with dark chocolate, 516 kilocalorie.

Who are you? You want to, cancel the fat, in fact, surplus is not really so difficult, if your difficulties and responsible, set aside some time, material life, it reproduces the vegetable soup good, will be able to immediately Shoudaoqinlai choice? Pen for her beauty. "DanAnSuan GuangAnSuan, stop meizitang dry skin effective. We tell me you idiot don't abandon cooking (or). We fully understand it needs and vegetable soup and thin, there is no necessary skills and cooking nutritionist to support the whole comprehensive health care, food, again in his mouth, is not it?

Had Alice consented to live with her

Lady Macleod lived at No. 3, Paramount Crescent, in Cheltenham, where she occupied a very handsome first-floor drawing-room, with a bedroom behind it looking over a stable-yard, and a small room which would have been the dressing-room had the late Sir Archibald been alive, but which was at present called the dining-room: and in it Lady Macleod did dine whenever her larger room was to be used for any purposes of evening company. The vicinity of the stable-yard was not regarded by the tenant as among the attractions of the house; but it had the effect of lowering the rent, and Lady Macleod was a woman who regarded such matters. Her income, though small, would have sufficed to enable her to live removed from such discomforts; but she was one of those women who regard it as a duty to leave something behind them — even though it be left to those who do not at all want it; and Lady Macleod was a woman who wilfully neglected no duty. So she pinched herself, and inhaled the effluvia of the stables, and squabbled with the cabmen, in order that she might bequeath a thousand pounds or two to some Lady Midlothian, who cared, perhaps, little for her, and would hardly thank her memory for the money.
Had Alice consented to live with her, she would have merged that duty of leaving money behind her in that other duty of finding a home for her adopted niece. But Alice had gone away, and therefore the money was due to Lady Midlothian rather than to her. The saving, however, was postponed whenever Alice would consent to visit Cheltenham; and a bedroom was secured for her which did not look out over the stables. Accommodation was also found for her maid much better than that provided for Lady Macleod’s own maid. She was a hospitable, good old woman, painfully struggling to do the best she could in the world. It was a pity that she was such a bore, a pity that she was so hard to cabmen and others, a pity that she suspected all tradesmen, servants, and people generally of a rank of life inferior to her own, a pity that she was disposed to condemn for ever and ever so many of her own rank because they played cards on week days, and did not go to church on Sundays — and a pity, as I think above all, that while she was so suspicious of the poor she was so lenient to the vices of earls, earls’ sons, and such like.
Alice, having fully considered the matter, had thought it most prudent to tell Lady Macleod by letter what she had done in regard to Mr Grey. There had been many objections to the writing of such a letter, but there appeared to be stronger objection to that telling it face to face which would have been forced upon her had she not written. There would in such case have arisen on Lady Macleod’s countenance a sternness of rebuke which Alice did not choose to encounter. The same sternness of rebuke would come upon the countenance on receipt of the written information; but it would come in its most aggravated form on the immediate receipt of the letter, and some of its bitterness would have passed away before Alice’s arrival. I think that Alice was right. It is better for both parties that any great offence should be confessed by letter.
But Alice trembled as the cab drew up at No. 3, Paramount Crescent. She met her aunt, as was usual, just inside the drawing-room door, and she saw at once that if any bitterness had passed away from that face, the original bitterness must indeed have been bitter. She had so timed her letter that Lady Macleod should have no opportunity of answering it. The answer was written there in the mingled anger and sorrow of those austere features.

Vavasor also maintained another little establishment

It cannot perhaps fairly be said that George Vavasor was an inhospitable man, seeing that it was his custom to entertain his friends occasionally at Greenwich, Richmond or such places; and he would now and again have a friend to dine with him at his club. But he never gave breakfasts, dinners, or suppers under his own roof. During a short period of his wine-selling career, at which time he had occupied handsome rooms over his place of business in New Burlington Street, he had presided at certain feasts given to customers or expectant customers by the firm; but he had not found this employment to be to his taste, and had soon relinquished it to one of the other partners. Since that he had lived in lodgings in Cecil Street — down at the bottom of that retired nook, near to the river and away from the Strand. Here he had simply two rooms on the first floor, and hither his friends came to him very rarely. They came very rarely on any account. A stray man might now and then pass an hour with him here; but on such occasions the chances were that the visit had some reference, near or distant, to affairs of business. Eating or drinking there was never any to be found here by the most intimate of his allies. His lodgings were his private retreat, and they were so private that but few of his friends knew where he lived.
And had it been possible he would have wished that no one should have known his whereabouts, I am not aware that he had any special reason for this peculiarity, or that there was anything about his mode of life that required hiding; but he was a man who had always lived as though secrecy in certain matters might at any time become useful to him. He had a mode of dressing himself when he went out at night that made it almost impossible that any one should recognize him. The people at his lodgings did not even know that he had relatives, and his nearest relatives hardly knew that he had lodgings. Even Kate had never been at the rooms in Cecil Street, and addressed all her letters to his place of business or his club. He was a man who would bear no inquiry into himself. If he had been out of view for a month, and his friends asked him where he had been, he always answered the question falsely, or left it unanswered. There are many men of whom everybody knows all about all their belongings — as to whom everybody knows where they live, whither they go, what is their means, and how they spend it. But there are others of whom no man knows anything, and George Vavasor was such a one. For myself I like the open babbler the best. Babbling may be a weakness, but to my thinking mystery is a vice.
Vavasor also maintained another little establishment, down in Oxfordshire; but the two establishments did not even know of each other’s existence. There was a third, too, very closely hidden from the world’s eye, which shall be nameless; but of the establishment in Oxfordshire he did sometimes speak, in very humble words, among his friends. When he found himself among hunting men, he would speak of his two nags at Roebury, saying that he had never yet been able to mount a regular hunting stable, and that he supposed he never would; but that there were at Roebury two indifferent beasts of his if any one chose to buy them. And men very often did buy Vavasor’s horses. When he was on them they always went well and sold themselves readily. And though he thus spoke of two, and perhaps did not keep more during the summer, he always seemed to have horses enough when he was down in the country. No one ever knew George Vavasor not to hunt because he was short of stuff. And here, at Roebury, he kept a trusty servant, an ancient groom with two little bushy grey eyes which looked as though they could see through a stable door. Many were the long whisperings which George and Bat Smithers carried on at the stable door, in the very back depth of the yard attached to the hunting inn at Roebury. Bat regarded his master as a man wholly devoted to horses, but often wondered why he was not more regular in his sojournings in Oxfordshire. Of any other portion of his master’s life Bat knew nothing. Bat could give the address of his master’s club in London, but he could give no other address.

There had been a pretence of fishing

There had been a pretence of fishing, but no fish had been caught. It was soon found that such an amusement would interfere with the ladies’ dresses, and the affairs had become too serious to allow of any trivial interruption. “I really think, Mr Cheesacre,” an anxious mother had said, “that you’d better give it up. The water off the nasty cord has got all over Maria’s dress, already.” Maria made a faint protest that it did not signify in the least; but the fishing was given up — not without an inward feeling on the part of Mr Cheesacre that if Maria chose to come out with him in his boat, having been invited especially to fish, she ought to have put up with the natural results. “There are people who like to take everything and never like to give anything,” he said to Kate afterwards, as he was walking up with her to the picnic dinner. But he was unreasonable and unjust. The girls had graced his party with their best hats and freshest muslins, not that they might see him catch a mackerel, but that they might flirt and dance to the best advantage. “You can’t suppose that any girl will like to be drenched with sea-water when she has taken so much trouble with her starch,” said Kate. “Then she shouldn’t come fishing,” said Mr Cheesacre. “I hate such airs.”
But when they arrived at the old boat, Mrs Greenow shone forth pre-eminently as the mistress of the occasion, altogether overshadowing Mr Cheesacre by the extent of her authority. There was a little contest for supremacy between them, invisible to the eyes of the multitude; but Mr Cheesacre in such a matter had not a chance against Mrs Greenow. I am disposed to think that she would have reigned even though she had not contributed the eatables; but with that point in her favour, she was able to make herself supreme. Jeannette, too, was her servant, which was a great thing. Mr Cheesacre soon gave way; and though he bustled about and was conspicuous, he bustled about in obedience to orders received, and became a head servant. Captain Bellfield also made himself useful, but he drove Mr Cheesacre into paroxysms of suppressed anger by giving directions, and by having those directions obeyed. A man to whom he had lent twenty pounds the day before yesterday, and who had not contributed so much as a bottle of champagne!
“We’re to dine at four, and now it’s half past three,” said Mrs Greenow, addressing herself to the multitude.
“Yes, we’ll dine at four,” said Mr Cheesacre. “And as for the music, I’ve ordered it to be here punctual at half past five. We’re to have three horns, cymbals, triangle, and a drum.”“And now suppose we begin to unpack,” said Captain Bellfield. “Half the fun is in arranging the things.”
“Wine is a ticklish thing to handle, and there’s my man there to manage it.”
“It’s odd if I don’t know more about wine than the boots from the hotel,” said Bellfield. This allusion to the boots almost cowed Mr Cheesacre, and made him turn away, leaving Bellfield with the widow.
There was a great unpacking, during which Captain Bellfield and Mrs Greenow constantly had their heads in the same hamper. I by no means intend to insinuate that there was anything wrong in this. People engaged together in unpacking pies and cold chickens must have their heads in the same hamper. But a great intimacy was thereby produced, and the widow seemed to have laid aside altogether that prejudice of hers with reference to the washerwoman. There was a long table placed on the sand, sheltered by the upturned boat from the land side, but open towards the sea, and over this, supported on poles, there was an awning. Upon the whole the arrangement was not an uncomfortable one for people who had selected so very uncomfortable a dining-room as the sand of the sea-shore. Much was certainly due to Mr Cheesacre for the expenditure he had incurred — and something perhaps to Captain Bellfield for his ingenuity in having suggested it.

Yarmouth is not a happy place for a picnic

Yarmouth is not a happy place for a picnic. A picnic should be held among green things. Green turf is absolutely an essential. There should be trees, broken ground, small paths, thickets, and hidden recesses. There should, if possible, be rocks, old timber, moss, and brambles. There should certainly be hills and dales — on a small scale, and, above all, there should be running water. There should be no expanse. Jones should not be able to see all Greene’s movements, nor should Augusta always have her eye upon her sister Jane. But the spot chosen for Mr Cheesacre’s picnic at Yarmouth had none of the virtues above described. It was on the sea-shore. Nothing was visible from the site but sand and sea. There were no trees there and nothing green — neither was there any running water. But there was a long, dry, flat strand; there was an old boat half turned over, under which it was proposed to dine; and in addition to this, benches, boards, and some amount of canvas for shelter were provided by the liberality of Mr Cheesacre. Therefore it was called Mr Cheesacre’s picnic.
But it was to be a marine picnic, and therefore the essential attributes of other picnics were not required. The idea had come from some boating expeditions, in which mackerel had been caught, and during which food had been eaten, not altogether comfortably, in the boats. Then a thought had suggested itself to Captain Bellfield that they might land and eat their food, and his friend Mr Cheesacre had promised his substantial aid. A lady had surmised that Ormesby sands would be the very place for dancing in the cool of the evening. They might “dance on the sand,” she said, “and yet no footing seen.” And so the thing had progressed, and the picnic been inaugurated.
It was Mr Cheesacre’s picnic undoubtedly. Mr Cheesacre was to supply the boats, the wine, the cigars, the music, and the carpenter’s work necessary for the turning of the old boat into a banqueting saloon. But Mrs Greenow had promised to provide the eatables, and enjoyed as much of the éclat as the master of the festival. She had known Mr Cheesacre now for ten days and was quite intimate with him. He was a stout, florid man, of about forty-five, a bachelor, apparently much attached to ladies’ society, bearing no sign of age except that he was rather bald, and that grey hairs had mixed themselves with his whiskers, very fond of his farming, and yet somewhat ashamed of it when he found himself in what he considered to be polite circles. And he was, moreover, a little inclined to seek the honour which comes from a well-filled and liberally-opened purse. He liked to give a man a dinner and then to boast of the dinner he had given. He was very proud when he could talk of having mounted, for a day’s hunting, any man who might be supposed to be of higher rank than himself. “I had Grimsby with me the other day — the son of old Grimsby of Hatherwick, you know. Blessed if he didn’t stake my bay mare. But what matters? I mounted him again the next day just the same.” Some people thought he was soft, for it was very well known throughout Norfolk that young Grimsby would take a mount wherever he could get it. In these days Mrs Greenow had become intimate with Mr Cheesacre, and had already learned that he was the undoubted owner of his own acres.
“It wouldn’t do for me,” she had said to him, “to be putting myself forward, as if I were giving a party myself, or anything of that sort — would it now?”
“Well, perhaps not. But you might come with us.”
“So I will, Mr Cheesacre, for that dear girl’s sake. I should never forgive myself if I debarred her from all the pleasures of youth, because of my sorrows. I need hardly say that at such a time as this nothing of that sort can give me any pleasure.”
“I suppose not,” said Mr Cheesacre, with a solemn look.

I think you are very wrong

“You don’t mean to say that you’ve walked from King Street,” said Alice, doing as she was desired.
“Indeed I do — every step of the way. Cabs are so ruinous, It’s a most unfortunate thing; they always say it’s just over the two miles here. I don’t believe a word of it, because I’m only a little more than the half-hour walking it; and those men will say anything. But how can I prove it, you know?”
“I really think it’s too far for you to walk when it’s so warm.”
“But what can I do, my dear? I must come, when I’ve specially come up to London to see you. I shall have a cab back again, because it’ll be hotter then, and dear Lady Midlothian has promised to send her carriage at three to take me to the concert. I do so wish you’d go, Alice.”
“It’s out of the question, aunt. The idea of my going in that way at the last moment, without any invitation!”
“It wouldn’t be without an invitation, Alice. The marchioness has said to me over and over again how glad she would be to see you, if I would bring you.”
“Why doesn’t she come and call if she is so anxious to know me?”
“My dear, you’ve no right to expect it; you haven’t indeed. She never calls even on me.”
“I know I’ve no right, and I don’t expect it, and I don’t want it. But neither has she a right to suppose that, under such circumstances, I shall go to her house. You might as well give it up, aunt. Cart-ropes wouldn’t drag me there.”
“I think you are very wrong — particularly under your present circumstances. A young woman that is going to be married, as you are — ”
“As I am — perhaps.”
“That’s nonsense, Alice. Of course you are; and for his sake you are bound to cultivate any advantages that naturally belong to you. As to Lady Midlothian or the marchioness coming to call on you here in your father’s house, after all that has passed, you really have no right to look for it.”
“And I don’t look for it.”
“That sort of people are not expected to call. If you’ll think of it, how could they do it with all the demands they have on their time?”
“My dear aunt, I wouldn’t interfere with their time for worlds.”
“Nobody can say of me, I’m sure, that I run after great people or rich people. It does happen that some of the nearest relations I have — indeed I may say the nearest relations — are people of high rank; and I do not see that I’m bound to turn away from my own flesh and blood because of that, particularly when they are always so anxious to keep up the connexion.”
“I was only speaking of myself, aunt. It is very different with you. You have known them all your life.”
“And how are you to know them if you won’t begin? Lady Midlothian said to me only yesterday that she was glad to hear that you were going to be married so respectably, and then — ”
“Upon my word I’m very much obliged to her ladyship. I wonder whether she considered that she married respectably when she took Lord Midlothian?”
Now Lady Midlothian had been unfortunate in her marriage, having united herself to a man of bad character, who had used her ill, and from whom she had now been for some years separated. Alice might have spared her allusion to this misfortune when speaking of the countess to the cousin who was so fond of her, but she was angered by the application of that odious word respectable to her own prospects; and perhaps the more angered as she was somewhat inclined to feel that the epithet did suit her own position. Her engagement, she had sometimes told herself, was very respectable, and had as often told herself that it lacked other attractions which it should have possessed. She was not quite pleased with herself in having accepted John Grey — or rather perhaps was not satisfied with herself in having loved him. In her many thoughts on the subject, she always admitted to herself that she had accepted him simply because she loved him — that she had given her quick assent to his quick proposal simply because he had won her heart. But she was sometimes almost angry with herself that she had permitted her heart to be thus easily taken from her, and had rebuked herself for her girlish facility. But the marriage would be at any rate respectable. Mr Grey was a man of high character, of good though moderate means; he was, too, well educated, of good birth, a gentleman, and a man of talent. No one could deny that the marriage would be highly respectable, and her father had been more than satisfied. Why Miss Vavasor herself was not quite satisfied will, I hope, in time make itself appear. In the meanwhile it can be understood that Lady Midlothian’s praise would gall her.

Men, and women too, letting go to the multiplicity of things

    He said nothing. He took opium. The children said he had stained hisbeard yellow with it. Perhaps. What was obvious to her was that thepoor man was unhappy, came to them every year as an escape; and yetevery year she felt the same thing; he did not trust her. She said, "I amgoing to the town. Shall I get you stamps, paper, tobacco?" and she felthim wince. He did not trust her. It was his wife's doing. She rememberedthat iniquity of his wife's towards him, which had made her turn to steeland adamant there, in the horrible little room in St John's Wood, whenwith her own eyes she had seen that odious woman turn him out of thehouse. He was unkempt; he dropped things on his coat; he had the tiresomenessof an old man with nothing in the world to do; and she turnedhim out of the room. She said, in her odious way, "Now, Mrs Ramsayand I want to have a little talk together," and Mrs Ramsay could see, as ifbefore her eyes, the innumerable miseries of his life. Had he moneyenough to buy tobacco? Did he have to ask her for it? half a crown?
　　eighteenpence? Oh, she could not bear to think of the little indignitiesshe made him suffer. And always now (why, she could not guess, exceptthat it came probably from that woman somehow) he shrank from her.
　　He never told her anything. But what more could she have done? Therewas a sunny room given up to him. The children were good to him.
　　Never did she show a sign of not wanting him. She went out of her wayindeed to be friendly. Do you want stamps, do you want tobacco? Here'sa book you might like and so on. And after all—after all (here insensiblyshe drew herself together, physically, the sense of her own beauty becoming,as it did so seldom, present to her) after all, she had not generallyany difficulty in making people like her; for instance, George Manning;Mr Wallace; famous as they were, they would come to her of anevening, quietly, and talk alone over her fire. She bore about with her,she could not help knowing it, the torch of her beauty; she carried it erectinto any room that she entered; and after all, veil it as she might, andshrink from the monotony of bearing that it imposed on her, her beauty was apparent. She had been admired. She had been loved. She hadentered rooms where mourners sat. Tears had flown in her presence.
　　Men, and women too, letting go to the multiplicity of things, had allowedthemselves with her the relief of simplicity. It injured her that heshould shrink. It hurt her. And yet not cleanly, not rightly. That waswhat she minded, coming as it did on top of her discontent with her husband;the sense she had now when Mr Carmichael shuffled past, justnodding to her question, with a book beneath his arm, in his yellow slippers,that she was suspected; and that all this desire of hers to give, tohelp, was vanity. For her own self-satisfaction was it that she wished soinstinctively to help, to give, that people might say of her, "O Mrs Ram-say! dear Mrs Ramsay… Mrs Ramsay, of course!" and need her and sendfor her and admire her? Was it not secretly this that she wanted, andtherefore when Mr Carmichael shrank away from her, as he did at thismoment, making off to some corner where he did acrostics endlessly, shedid not feel merely snubbed back in her instinct, but made aware of thepettiness of some part of her, and of human relations, how flawed theyare, how despicable, how self-seeking, at their best. Shabby and wornout, and not presumably (her cheeks were hollow, her hair was white)any longer a sight that filled the eyes with joy, she had better devote hermind to the story of the Fisherman and his Wife and so pacify thatbundle of sensitiveness (none of her children was as sensitive as he was),her son James.
　　"The man's heart grew heavy," she read aloud, "and he would not go.

He found himself, next, slipping northward between the glazed walls of the Subway

He stood at the corner of Wall Street, looking up and down its hot summer perspective. He noticed the swirls of dust in the cracks of the pavement, the rubbish in the gutters, the ceaseless stream of perspiring faces that poured by under tilted hats.
He found himself, next, slipping northward between the glazed walls of the Subway, another languid crowd in the seats about him and the nasal yelp of the stations ringing through the car like some repeated ritual wail. The blindness within him seemed to have intensified his physical perceptions, his sensitiveness to the heat, the noise, the smells of the dishevelled midsummer city; but combined with the acuter perception of these offenses was a complete indifference to them, as though he were some vivisected animal deprived of the power of discrimination.
Now he had turned into Waverly Place, and was walking westward toward Washington Square. At the corner he pulled himself up, saying half-aloud: "The office--I ought to be at the office." He drew out his watch and stared at it blankly. What the devil had he taken it out for? He had to go through a laborious process of readjustment to find out what it had to say.... Twelve o'clock.... Should he turn back to the office? It seemed easier to cross the square, go up the steps of the old house and slip his key into the door....
The house was empty. His mother, a few days previously, had departed with Mr. Dagonet for their usual two months on the Maine coast, where Ralph was to join them with his boy.... The blinds were all drawn down, and the freshness and silence of the marble-paved hall laid soothing hands on him.... He said to himself: "I'll jump into a cab presently, and go and lunch at the club--" He laid down his hat and stick and climbed the carpetless stairs to his room. When he entered it he had the shock of feeling himself in a strange place: it did not seem like anything he had ever seen before. Then, one by one, all the old stale usual things in it confronted him, and he longed with a sick intensity to be in a place that was really strange.
"How on earth can I go on living here?" he wondered.
A careless servant had left the outer shutters open, and the sun was beating on the window-panes. Ralph pushed open the windows, shut the shutters, and wandered toward his arm-chair. Beads of perspiration stood on his forehead: the temperature of the room reminded him of the heat under the ilexes of the Sienese villa where he and Undine had sat through a long July afternoon. He saw her before him, leaning against the tree-trunk in her white dress, limpid and inscrutable.... "We were made one at Opake, Nebraska...." Had she been thinking of it that afternoon at Siena, he wondered? Did she ever think of it at all?... It was she who had asked Moffatt to dine. She had said: "Father brought him home one day at Apex.... I don't remember ever having seen him since"--and the man she spoke of had had her in his arms ... and perhaps it was really all she remembered!

At the door of the hotel he ran across the Prince of Teutoburg'saide-de-camp

　　Again and again he fancied he had established a truce with thepast: had come to terms--the terms of defeat and failure withthat bright enemy called happiness. And, in truth, he hadreached the point of definitely knowing that he could neverreturn to the kind of life that he and Susy had embarked on. Ithad been the tragedy, of their relation that loving her rousedin him ideals she could never satisfy. He had fallen in lovewith her because she was, like himself, amused, unprejudiced anddisenchanted; and he could not go on loving her unless sheceased to be all these things. From that circle there was noissue, and in it he desperately revolved.
　　If he had not heard such persistent rumours of her re-marriageto Lord Altringham he might have tried to see her again; but,aware of the danger and the hopelessness of a meeting, he was,on the whole, glad to have a reason for avoiding it. Such, atleast, he honestly supposed to be his state of mind until hefound himself, as on this occasion, free to follow out histhought to its end. That end, invariably, was Susy; not thebundle of qualities and defects into which his critical spirithad tried to sort her out, but the soft blur of identity, ofpersonality, of eyes, hair, mouth, laugh, tricks of speech andgesture, that were all so solely and profoundly her own, and yetso mysteriously independent of what she might do, say, think, incrucial circumstances. He remembered her once saying to him:
　　"After all, you were right when you wanted me to be yourmistress," and the indignant stare of incredulity with which hehad answered her. Yet in these hours it was the palpable imageof her that clung closest, till, as invariably happened, hisvision came full circle, and feeling her on his breast he wantedher also in his soul.
　　Well--such all-encompassing loves were the rarest of humanexperiences; he smiled at his presumption in wanting no other.
　　Wearily he turned, and tramped homeward through the wintertwilight ....
　　At the door of the hotel he ran across the Prince of Teutoburg'saide-de-camp. They had not met for some days, and Nick had avague feeling that if the Prince's matrimonial designs tookdefinite shape he himself was not likely, after all, to be theirchosen exponent. He had surprised, now and then, a certaindistrustful coldness under the Princess Mother's cordial glance,and had concluded that she perhaps suspected him of being anobstacle to her son's aspirations. He had no idea of playingthat part, but was not sorry to appear to; for he was sincerelyattached to Coral Hicks, and hoped for her a more human fatethan that of becoming Prince Anastasius's consort.
　　This evening, however, he was struck by the beaming alacrity ofthe aide-de-camp's greeting. Whatever cloud had hung betweenthem had lifted: the Teutoburg clan, for one reason or another,no longer feared or distrusted him. The change was conveyed ina mere hand-pressure, a brief exchange of words, for the aide-de-camp was hastening after a well-known dowager of the oldRoman world, whom he helped into a large coronetted broughamwhich looked as if it had been extracted, for some ceremonialpurpose, from a museum of historic vehicles. And in an instantit flashed on Lansing that this lady had been the person chosento lay the Prince's offer at Miss Hicks's feet.
　　The discovery piqued him; and instead of making straight for hisown room he went up to Mrs. Hicks's drawing-room.
　　The room was empty, but traces of elaborate tea pervaded it, andan immense bouquet of stiff roses lay on the centre table. Ashe turned away, Eldorada Tooker, flushed and tear-stained,abruptly entered.
　　"Oh, Mr. Lansing--we were looking everywhere for you.""Looking for me?""Yes. Coral especially ... she wants to see you. She wants youto come to her own sitting-room."She led him across the ante-chamber and down the passage to theseparate suite which Miss Hicks inhabited. On the thresholdEldorada gasped out emotionally: "You'll find her lookinglovely--" and jerked away with a sob as he entered.

They walked down the stone stairs

"Thanks," said van Heerden, pocketing the ticket, "it is of no use to me now, for I cannot wait. I gather that you have not disclosed the fact that this ticket is in your possession."
"Lower your voice!" he hissed menacingly. "I gather as much because Beale knew the ticket would not be in my possession now. If he only knew, if he only had a hint of its existence, I fear my scheme would fail. As it is, it will succeed. And now," he said with a smile, "time is short and your preparations must be of the briefest. I will save you the trouble of asking questions by telling you that I am going to take you along with me. I certainly cannot afford to leave you. Get your coat."
With a shrug she walked past him to the bedroom and he followed.
There was no tremor in her voice and she felt remarkably self-possessed.
"I am not asking out of idle curiosity, but I want to know whether I ought to take a bag."
She carried the little attache case back to the sitting-room.
"You have no objection to my taking a little light reading-matter?" she asked contemptuously. "I am afraid you are not a very entertaining companion, Dr. van Heerden."
"Excellent girl," said van Heerden cheerfully. "Take anything you like."
She slipped a book from the shelf and nearly betrayed herself by an involuntary exclamation as she felt its weight.
"You are not very original in your methods," she said, "this is the second time you have spirited me off."
"The gaols of England, as your new-found friend Milsom will tell you, are filled with criminals who departed from the beaten tracks," said van Heerden. "Walk out into the corridor and turn to the right. I will be close behind you. A little way along you will discover a narrow passage which leads to the service staircase. Go down that. I am sure you believe me when I say that I will kill you if you attempt to make any signal or scream or appeal for help."
She did not answer. It was because of this knowledge and this fear, which was part of her youthful equipment--for violent death is a very terrible prospect to the young and the healthy--that she obeyed him at all.
They walked down the stone stairs, through an untidy, low-roofed lobby, redolent of cooking food, into the street, without challenge and without attracting undue notice.
Van Heerden's car was waiting at the end of the street, and she thought she recognized the chauffeur as Bridgers.
"Once more we ride together," said van Heerden gaily, "and what will be the end of this adventure for you depends entirely upon your loyalty--what are you opening your bag for?" he asked, peering in the dark.
"I am looking for a handkerchief," said Oliva. "I am afraid I am going to cry!"
He settled himself back in the corner of the car with a sigh of resignation, accepting her explanation--sarcasm was wholly wasted on van Heerden.
"Well, gentlemen," said Milsom, "I don't think there's anything more I can tell you. What are you going to do with me?"
"I'll take the responsibility of not executing the warrant," said McNorton. "You will accompany one of my men to his home to-night and you will be under police supervision."
"That's no new experience," said Milsom, "there's only one piece of advice I want to give you."
"Don't underrate van Heerden. You have no conception of his nerve. There isn't a man of us here," he said, "whose insurance rate wouldn't go up to ninety per cent. if van Heerden decided to get him. I don't profess that I can help you to explain his strange conduct to-day. I can only outline the psychology of it, but how and where he has hidden his code and what circumstances prevent its recovery, is known only to van Heerden."
He nodded to the little group, and accompanied by McNorton left the room.

And then the strange unaccountable fact dawned on her

He disappeared into his own flat and presently came out holding an electric torch. He snapped back the lock, put the key in his pocket and then, to her amazement, he slipped a short-barrelled revolver from his hip-pocket.
With his foot he pushed open the door and she watched him vanish into the gloomy interior.
Presently came his voice, sharp and menacing:
A voice jabbered something excitedly and then she heard Mr. Beale speak.
"Is your light working?--you can come in, I have him in the dining-room."
She stepped into the bath-room, the shilling dropped through the aperture, the screw grated as she turned it and the lights sprang to life.
In one corner of the room was a man, a white-faced, sickly looking man with a head too big for his body. His hands were above his head, his lower lip trembled in terror.
Mr. Beale was searching him with thoroughness and rapidity.
"No gun, all right, put your hands down. Now turn out your pockets."
The man said something in a language which the girl could not understand, and Mr. Beale replied in the same tongue. He put the contents, first of one pocket then of the other, upon the table, and the girl watched the proceedings with open eyes.
"Hello, what's this?"
Beale picked up a card. Thereon was scribbled a figure which might have been 6 or 4.
"I see," said Beale, "now the other pocket--you understand English, my friend?"
Stupidly the man obeyed. A leather pocket-case came from an inside pocket and this Beale opened.
Therein was a small packet which resembled the familiar wrapper of a seidlitz powder. Beale spoke sharply in a language which the girl realized was German, and the man shook his head. He said something which sounded like "No good," several times.
"I'm going to leave you here alone for awhile," said Beale, "my friend and I are going downstairs together--I shall not be long."
They went out of the flat together, the little man with the big head protesting, and she heard their footsteps descending the stairs. Presently Beale came up alone and walked into the sitting-room. And then the strange unaccountable fact dawned on her--he was perfectly sober.
His eyes were clear, his lips firm, and the fair hair whose tendencies to bedragglement had emphasized his disgrace was brushed back over his head. He looked at her so earnestly that she grew embarrassed.
"Miss Cresswell," he said quietly. "I am going to ask you to do me a great favour."
"If it is one that I can grant, you may be sure that I will," she smiled, and he nodded.
"I shall not ask you to do anything that is impossible in spite of the humorist's view of women," he said. "I merely want you to tell nobody about what has happened to-night."
"Nobody?" she looked at him in astonishment. "But the doctor----"
"Not even the doctor," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "I ask you this as a special favour--word of honour?"
"I promise," she said. "I'm to tell nobody about that horrid man from whom you so kindly saved me----"
"Understand this, Miss Cresswell, please," he said: "I don't want you to be under any misapprehension about that 'horrid man'--he was just as scared as you, and he would not have harmed you. I have been waiting for him all the evening."
"In the doctor's flat," he said calmly, "you see, the doctor and I are deadly rivals. We are rival scientists, and I was waiting for the hairy man to steal a march on him."
"But, but--how did you get in."

I don't say I can clear myself altogether

'Did I?' replied she, looking seriously up; 'I was not aware of it. If I did, it was not for pleasure at the thoughts of the harm I had done you. Heaven knows I have had torment enough at the bare possibility of that; it was for joy to find that you had some depth of soul and feeling after all, and to hope that I had not been utterly mistaken in your worth. But smiles and tears are so alike with me, they are neither of them confined to any particular feelings: I often cry when I am happy, and smile when I am sad.'
She looked at me again, and seemed to expect a reply; but I continued silent.
'Would you be very glad,' resumed she, 'to find that you were mistaken in your conclusions?'
'I don't say I can clear myself altogether,' said she, speaking low and fast, while her heart beat visibly and her bosom heaved with excitement, - 'but would you be glad to discover I was better than you think me?'
'Anything that could in the least degree tend to restore my former opinion of you, to excuse the regard I still feel for you, and alleviate the pangs of unutterable regret that accompany it, would be only too gladly, too eagerly received!' Her cheeks burned, and her whole frame trembled, now, with excess of agitation. She did not speak, but flew to her desk, and snatching thence what seemed a thick album or manuscript volume, hastily tore away a few leaves from the end, and thrust the rest into my hand, saying, 'You needn't read it all; but take it home with you,' and hurried from the room. But when I had left the house, and was proceeding down the walk, she opened the window and called me back. It was only to say, - 'Bring it back when you have read it; and don't breathe a word of what it tells you to any living being. I trust to your honour.'
Before I could answer she had closed the casement and turned away. I saw her cast herself back in the old oak chair, and cover her face with her hands. Her feelings had been wrought to a pitch that rendered it necessary to seek relief in tears.
Panting with eagerness, and struggling to suppress my hopes, I hurried home, and rushed up-stairs to my room, having first provided myself with a candle, though it was scarcely twilight yet - then, shut and bolted the door, determined to tolerate no interruption; and sitting down before the table, opened out my prize and delivered myself up to its perusal - first hastily turning over the leaves and snatching a sentence here and there, and then setting myself steadily to read it through.
I have it now before me; and though you could not, of course, peruse it with half the interest that I did, I know you would not be satisfied with an abbreviation of its contents, and you shall have the whole, save, perhaps, a few passages here and there of merely temporary interest to the writer, or such as would serve to encumber the story rather than elucidate it. It begins somewhat abruptly, thus - but we will reserve its commencement for another chapter.

She baby-stepped over to the far end of the bed

Part of the emergency kit Milo and Rick hadgotten me last Christmas. Tire changing kit, flares, orange Day-Glo roadmarkers, blankets, bottled water.
Rick taking me aside and confiding, “I’d have picked a nice sweater, but acooler head prevailed.”
Milo’s voice bellowing from the corner of their living room: “Haberdasherydon’t cut it when you’re stranded out on some isolated road with no lights andwolves and God knows what other toothy carnivores are aiming their beady littlepredator eyes at your anatomy, just waiting to—”
“Then why didn’t we get him a gun, Milo?”
“Next year. Some day you’ll thank me, Alex. You’re welcome in advance.”

I hooked up the pump and got to work.
When I was finished, Robin said, “The way you handled it—just enough todefuse the situation and no one got hurt. Classy.”
She took my face in her hands and kissed me hard.
We found a deli on Washington Boulevard, bought more takeout than we needed,drove back to Beverly Glen.
Robin walked into the house as if she lived there, entered the kitchen andset the table. We made it halfway through the food.

When she got out of bed, the movement woke me. Sweaty nap but my eyes weredry.
Through half-closed lids, I watched her slip on my ratty yellow robe and padaround the bedroom. Touching the tops of chairs and tables. Pausing by thedresser. Righting a framed print.
At the window, she drew back one side of the silk curtains she’d designed.She put her face against the glass, peered out at the foothills.
I said, “Pretty night.”
“The view,” she said without turning. “Still unobstructed.”
“Looks like it’s going to stay that way. Bob had his lower acre surveyed andit’s definitely unfit for construction.”
“Bob the Neighbor,” she said. “How’s he doing?”
“When he’s in town, he seems well.”
“Second home in Tahiti,” she said.
“Main home in Tahiti. Nothing likeinherited wealth.”
“That’s good news—about the view. I was hoping for that when I oriented theroom that way.” She let the curtain drop. Smoothed the pleats. “I did a decentjob with this place. Like living here?”
“Not as much as I used to.”
She cinched the robe tighter, half faced me. Her hair was wild, her lipsslightly swollen. Faraway eyes.
“I thought it might be strange,” she said. “Coming back. It’s less strangethan I would’ve predicted.”
“It’s your place, too,” I said.
She didn’t answer.
“I mean it.”
She baby-stepped over to the far end of the bed, played with the edges ofthe comforter. “You haven’t thought that through.”
I hadn’t. “Sure I have. Many a long night.”
She shrugged.
“The place echoes, Robin.”
“It always did. We were aiming for great acoustics.”
“It can be musical,” I said. “Or not.”
She pulled at the comforter, squared the seam with the edge of the mattress.“You do all right by yourself.”
“Says who?”
“You’ve always been self-contained.”
“Like hell.” My voice was harsh.
She looked up at me.
I said, “Come back. Keep the studio if you need privacy, but live here.”
She tugged at the comforter some more. Her mouth twisted into a shape Icouldn’t read. Loosening the robe, she let it fall to the floor, reconsidered,picked it up, folded it neatly over a chair. The organized mind of someone whoworks with power tools.
Fluffing her hair, she got back in bed.
“No pressure, just think about it,” I said.
“It’s a lot to digest.”
“You’re a tough kid.”
“Like hell.” Pressing her flank to mine, she laced her fingers and placedthem over her belly.
I drew the covers over us.
“That’s better, thanks,” she said.
Neither of us moved.

Selden ran eagerly up the steps and pulled the bell

The next morning rose mild and bright, with a promise of summer in the air. The sunlight slanted joyously down Lily's street, mellowed the blistered house-front, gilded the paintless railings of the door-step, and struck prismatic glories from the panes of her darkened window.
When such a day coincides with the inner mood there is intoxication in its breath; and Selden, hastening along the street through the squalor of its morning confidences, felt himself thrilling with a youthful sense of adventure. He had cut loose from the familiar shores of habit, and launched himself on uncharted seas of emotion; all the old tests and measures were left behind, and his course was to be shaped by new stars.
That course, for the moment, led merely to Miss Bart's boarding-house; but its shabby door-step had suddenly become the threshold of the untried. As he approached he looked up at the triple row of windows, wondering boyishly which one of them was hers. It was nine o'clock, and the house, being tenanted by workers, already showed an awakened front to the street. He remembered afterward having noticed that only one blind was down. He noticed too that there was a pot of pansies on one of the window sills, and at once concluded that the window must be hers: it was inevitable that he should connect her with the one touch of beauty in the dingy scene.
Nine o'clock was an early hour for a visit, but Selden had passed beyond all such conventional observances. He only knew that he must see Lily Bart at once--he had found the word he meant to say to her, and it could not wait another moment to be said. It was strange that it had not come to his lips sooner--that he had let her pass from him the evening before without being able to speak it. But what did that matter, now that a new day had come? It was not a word for twilight, but for the morning.
Selden ran eagerly up the steps and pulled the bell; and even in his state of self-absorption it came as a sharp surprise to him that the door should open so promptly. It was still more of a surprise to see, as he entered, that it had been opened by Gerty Farish--and that behind her, in an agitated blur, several other figures ominously loomed.
"Lawrence!" Gerty cried in a strange voice, "how could you get here so quickly?"--and the trembling hand she laid on him seemed instantly to close about his heart.
He noticed the other faces, vague with fear and conjecture--he saw the landlady's imposing bulk sway professionally toward him; but he shrank back, putting up his hand, while his eyes mechanically mounted the steep black walnut stairs, up which he was immediately aware that his cousin was about to lead him.
A voice in the background said that the doctor might be back at any minute--and that nothing, upstairs, was to be disturbed. Some one else exclaimed: "It was the greatest mercy--" then Selden felt that Gerty had taken him gently by the hand, and that they were to be suffered to go up alone.
In silence they mounted the three flights, and walked along the passage to a closed door. Gerty opened the door, and Selden went in after her. Though the blind was down, the irresistible sunlight poured a tempered golden flood into the room, and in its light Selden saw a narrow bed along the wall, and on the bed, with motionless hands and calm unrecognizing face, the semblance of Lily Bart.
That it was her real self, every pulse in him ardently denied. Her real self had lain warm on his heart but a few hours earlier--what had he to do with this estranged and tranquil face which, for the first time, neither paled nor brightened at his coming?
Gerty, strangely tranquil too, with the conscious self-control of one who has ministered to much pain, stood by the bed, speaking gently, as if transmitting a final message.
"The doctor found a bottle of chloral--she had been sleeping badly for a long time, and she must have taken an overdose by mistake.... There is no doubt of that--no doubt--there will be no question--he has been very kind. I told him that you and I would like to be left alone with her--to go over her things before any one else comes. I know it is what she would have wished."

Lily shook her head with a sigh

Lily hesitated a moment. The first part of her companion's discourse had started an interesting train of thought, which was rudely interrupted by the mention of Mr. Rosedale's name. She uttered a faint protest.
"But you know Jack did try to take him about, and he was impossible."
"Oh, hang it--because he's fat and shiny, and has a sloppy manner! Well, all I can say is that the people who are clever enough to be civil to him now will make a mighty good thing of it. A few years from now he'll be in it whether we want him or not, and then he won't be giving away a half-a-million tip for a dinner."
Lily's mind had reverted from the intrusive personality of Mr. Rosedale to the train of thought set in motion by Trenor's first words. This vast mysterious Wall Street world of "tips" and "deals"--might she not find in it the means of escape from her dreary predicament? She had often heard of women making money in this way through their friends: she had no more notion than most of her sex of the exact nature of the transaction, and its vagueness seemed to diminish its indelicacy. She could not, indeed, imagine herself, in any extremity, stooping to extract a "tip" from Mr. Rosedale; but at her side was a man in possession of that precious commodity, and who, as the husband of her dearest friend, stood to her in a relation of almost fraternal intimacy.
In her inmost heart Lily knew it was not by appealing to the fraternal instinct that she was likely to move Gus Trenor; but this way of explaining the situation helped to drape its crudity, and she was always scrupulous about keeping up appearances to herself. Her personal fastidiousness had a moral equivalent, and when she made a tour of inspection in her own mind there were certain closed doors she did not open.
As they reached the gates of Bellomont she turned to Trenor with a smile. "The afternoon is so perfect--don't you want to drive me a little farther? I've been rather out of spirits all day, and it's so restful to be away from people, with some one who won't mind if I'm a little dull."
She looked so plaintively lovely as she proffered the request, so trustfully sure of his sympathy and understanding, that Trenor felt himself wishing that his wife could see how other women treated him--not battered wire-pullers like Mrs. Fisher, but a girl that most men would have given their boots to get such a look from.
"Out of spirits? Why on earth should you ever be out of spirits? Is your last box of Doucet dresses a failure, or did Judy rook you out of everything at bridge last night?"
Lily shook her head with a sigh. "I have had to give up Doucet; and bridge too--I can't afford it. In fact I can't afford any of the things my friends do, and I am afraid Judy often thinks me a bore because I don't play cards any longer, and because I am not as smartly dressed as the other women. But you will think me a bore too if I talk to you about my worries, and I only mention them because I want you to do me a favour--the very greatest of favours."
"Why, of course--if it's anything I can manage---" He broke off, and she guessed that his enjoyment was disturbed by the remembrance of Mrs. Fisher's methods.
"She is the best friend I have, and that is why I mind having to vex her. But I daresay you know what she has wanted me to do. She has set her heart--poor dear--on my marrying--marrying a great deal of money."
She paused with a slight falter of embarrassment, and Trenor, turning abruptly, fixed on her a look of growing intelligence.
"A great deal of money? Oh, by Jove--you don't mean Gryce? What--you do? Oh, no, of course I won't mention it--you can trust me to keep my mouth shut--but Gryce--good Lord, GRYCE! Did Judy really think you could bring yourself to marry that portentous little ass? But you couldn't, eh? And so you gave him the sack, and that's the reason why he lit out by the first train this morning?" He leaned back, spreading himself farther across the seat, as if dilated by the joyful sense of his own discernment. "How on earth could Judy think you would do such a thing? I could have told her you'd never put up with such a little milksop!"
Lily sighed more deeply. "I sometimes think," she murmured, "that men understand a woman's motives better than other women do."
"Some men--I'm certain of it! I could have TOLD Judy," he repeated, exulting in the implied superiority over his wife.
"I thought you would understand; that's why I wanted to speak to you," Miss Bart rejoined. "I can't make that kind of marriage; it's impossible. But neither can I go on living as all the women in my set do. I am almost entirely dependent on my aunt, and though she is very kind to me she makes me no regular allowance, and lately I've lost money at cards, and I don't dare tell her about it. I have paid my card debts, of course, but there is hardly anything left for my other expenses, and if I go on with my present life I shall be in horrible difficulties. I have a tiny income of my own, but I'm afraid it's badly invested, for it seems to bring in less every year, and I am so ignorant of money matters that I don't know if my aunt's agent, who looks after it, is a good adviser." She paused a moment, and added in a lighter tone: "I didn't mean to bore you with all this, but I want your help in making Judy understand that I can't, at present, go on living as one must live among you all. I am going away tomorrow to join my aunt at Richfield, and I shall stay there for the rest of the autumn, and dismiss my maid and learn how to mend my own clothes."

How very convenient

I must really rest a little before I can get on any farther. When I have reclined for a few minutes, with my eyes closed, and when Louis has refreshed my poor aching temples with a little eau-deCologne, I may be able to proceed.
No. I am able to proceed, but not to sit up. I will recline and dictate. Louis has a horrid accent, but he knows the language, and can write. How very convenient!
Her ladyship, the Countess, explained her unexpected appearance at the inn by telling Fanny that she had come to bring one or two little messages which Miss Halcombe in her hurry had forgotten. The Young Person thereupon waited anxiously to hear what the messages were, but the Countess seemed disinclined to mention them (so like my sister's tiresome way!) until Fanny had had her tea. Her ladyship was surprisingly kind and thoughtful about it (extremely unlike my sister), and said, "I am sure, my poor girl, you must want your tea. We can let the messages wait till afterwards. Come, come, if nothing else will put you at your ease, I'll make the tea and have a cup with you." I think those were the words, as reported excitably, in my presence, by the Young Person. At any rate, the Countess insisted on making the tea, and carried her ridiculous ostentation of humility so far as to take one cup herself, and to insist on the girl's taking the other. The girl drank the tea, and according to her own account, solemnised the extraordinary occasion five minutes afterwards by fainting dead away for the first time in her life. Here again I use her own words. Louis thinks they were accompanied by an increased secretion of tears. I can't say myself. The effort of listening being quite as much as I could manage, my eyes were closed.
Where did I leave off? Ah, yes--she fainted after drinking a cup of tea with the Countess--a proceeding which might have interested me if I had been her medical man, but being nothing of the sort I felt bored by hearing of it, nothing more. When she came to herself in half an hour's time she was on the sofa, and nobody was with her but the landlady. The Countess, finding it too late to remain any longer at the inn, had gone away as soon as the girl showed signs of recovering, and the landlady had been good enough to help her upstairs to bed.
Left by herself, she had felt in her bosom (I regret the necessity of referring to this part of the subject a second time), and had found the two letters there quite safe, but strangely crumpled. She had been giddy in the night, but had got up well enough to travel in the morning. She had put the letter addressed to that obtrusive stranger, the gentleman in London into the post, and had now delivered the other letter into my hands as she was told. This was the plain truth, and though she could not blame herself for any intentional neglect, she was sadly troubled in her mind, and sadly in want of a word of advice. At this point Louis thinks the secretions appeared again. Perhaps they did, but it is of infinitely greater importance to mention that at this point also I lost my patience, opened my eyes, and interfered.
Louis endeavoured and translated. In other words, he descended immediately into a bottomless pit of confusion, and the Young Person followed him down. I really don't know when I have been so amused. I left them at the bottom of the pit as long as they diverted me. When they ceased to divert me, I exerted my intelligence, and pulled them up again.
It is unnecessary to say that my interference enabled me, in due course of time, to ascertain the purport of the Young Person's remarks.
I discovered that she was uneasy in her mind, because the train of events that she had just described to me had prevented her from receiving those supplementary messages which Miss Halcombe had intrusted to the Countess to deliver. She was afraid the messages might have been of great importance to her mistress's interests. Her dread of Sir Percival had deterred her from going to Blackwater Park late at night to inquire about them, and Miss Halcombe's own directions to her, on no account to miss the train in the morning, had prevented her from waiting at the inn the next day. She was most anxious that the misfortune of her fainting-fit should not lead to the second misfortune of making her mistress think her neglectful, and she would humbly beg to ask me whether I would advise her to write her explanations and excuses to Miss Halcombe, requesting to receive the messages by letter, if it was not too late. I make no apologies for this extremely prosy paragraph. I have been ordered to write it. There are people, unaccountable as it may appear, who actually take more interest in what my niece's maid said to me on this occasion than in what I said to my niece's maid. Amusing perversity!

But Polly did n't get a chance to be miserable very long

Fanny laughed good-naturedly, saying, as she clasped her necklace, "If I had such shoulders as yours, I should n't care what the fashion was. Now don't preach, but put my cloak on nicely, and come along, for I 'm to meet Tom and Trix, and promised to be there early."
"I wish you were, and you would be, Polly, if you weren't such a resolute thing. I 've teased, and begged, and offered anything I have if you 'll only break your absurd vow, and come and enjoy yourself."
"Thank you; but I won't, so don't trouble your kind heart about me; I 'm all right," said Polly, stoutly.
But when they drew up before the lighted house, and she found herself in the midst of the pleasant stir of festivity, the coming and going of carriages, the glimpses of bright colors, forms, and faces, the bursts of music, and a general atmosphere of gayety, Polly felt that she was n't all right, and as she drove away for a dull evening in her lonely little room, she just cried as heartily as any child denied a stick of candy.
"It 's dreadful wicked of me, but I can't help it," she sobbed to herself, in the corner of the carriage. "That music sets me all in a twitter, and I should have looked nice in Fan's blue tarlatan, and I know I could behave as well as any one, and have lots of partners, though I 'm not in that set. Oh, just one good gallop with Mr. Sydney or Tom! No, Tom would n't ask me there, and I would n't accept if he did. Oh, me! oh, me! I wish I was as old and homely, and good and happy, as Miss Mills!"
So Polly made her moan, and by the time she got home, was just in the mood to go to bed and cry herself to sleep, as girls have a way of doing when their small affliction becomes unbearable.
But Polly did n't get a chance to be miserable very long, for as she went up stairs feeling like the most injured girl in the world, she caught a glimpse of Miss Mills, sewing away with such a bright face that she could n't resist stopping for a word or two.
"Sit down, my dear, I 'm glad to see you, but excuse me if I go on with my work, as I 'm in a driving hurry to get these things done to-night," said the brisk little lady, with a smile and a nod, as she took a new needleful of thread, and ran up a seam as if for a wager.
"Let me help you, then; I 'm lazy and cross, and it will do me good," said Polly, sitting down with the resigned feeling. "Well, if I can't be happy, I can be useful, perhaps."
"Thank you, my dear; yes, you can just hem the skirt while I put in the sleeves, and that will be a great lift."
Polly put on her thimble in silence, but as Miss Mills spread the white flannel over her lap, she exclaimed, "Why, it looks like a shroud! Is it one?"
"No, dear, thank God, it is n't, but it might have been, if we had n't saved the poor little soul," cried Miss Mills, with a sudden brightening of the face, which made it beautiful in spite of the stiff gray curl that bobbed on each temple, the want of teeth, and a crooked nose.
"Will you tell me about it? I like to hear your adventures and good works so much," said Polly, ready to be amused by anything that made her forget herself.
"Ah, my dear, it 's a very common story, and that 's the saddest part of it. I 'll tell you all about it, for I think you may be able to help me. Last night I watched with poor Mary Floyd. She 's dying of consumption, you know," began Miss Mills, as her nimble fingers flew, and her kind old face beamed over the work, as if she put a blessing in with every stitch. "Mary was very low, but about midnight fell asleep, and I was trying to keep things quiet, when Mrs. Finn she 's the woman of the house came and beckoned me out, with a scared face. 'Little Jane has killed herself, and I don't know what to do,' she said, leading me up to the attic."
"I only knew her as a pale, shy young girl who went in and out, and seldom spoke to any one. Mrs. Finn told me she was poor, but a busy, honest, little thing, who did n't mix with the other folks, but lived and worked alone. 'She has looked so down-hearted and pale for a week, that I thought she was sick, and asked her about it,' said Mrs. Finn, 'but she thanked me in her bashful way, and said she was pretty well, so I let her alone. But to-night, as I went up late to bed, I was kind of impressed to look in and see how the poor thing did, for she had n't left her room all day. I did look in, and here 's what I found.' As Mrs. Finn ended she opened the door of the back attic, and I saw about as sad a sight as these old eyes ever looked at."

Suddenly he became aware that General Epanchin was tapping him on the shoulder

For some minutes he did not seem to comprehend the excitement around him; that is, he comprehended it and saw everything, but he stood aside, as it were, like someone invisible in a fairy tale, as though he had nothing to do with what was going on, though it pleased him to take an interest in it.
He saw them gather up the broken bits of china; he heard the loud talking of the guests and observed how pale Aglaya looked, and how very strangely she was gazing at him. There was no hatred in her expression, and no anger whatever. It was full of alarm for him, and sympathy and affection, while she looked around at the others with flashing, angry eyes. His heart filled with a sweet pain as he gazed at her.
At length he observed, to his amazement, that all had taken their seats again, and were laughing and talking as though nothing had happened. Another minute and the laughter grew louder--they were laughing at him, at his dumb stupor--laughing kindly and merrily. Several of them spoke to him, and spoke so kindly and cordially, especially Lizabetha Prokofievna--she was saying the kindest possible things to him.
Suddenly he became aware that General Epanchin was tapping him on the shoulder; Ivan Petrovitch was laughing too, but still more kind and sympathizing was the old dignitary. He took the prince by the hand and pressed it warmly; then he patted it, and quietly urged him to recollect himself--speaking to him exactly as he would have spoken to a little frightened child, which pleased the prince wonderfully; and next seated him beside himself.
The prince gazed into his face with pleasure, but still seemed to have no power to speak. His breath failed him. The old man's face pleased him greatly.
"Do you really forgive me?" he said at last. "And--and Lizabetha Prokofievna too?" The laugh increased, tears came into the prince's eyes, he could not believe in all this kindness--he was enchanted.
"The vase certainly was a very beautiful one. I remember it here for fifteen years--yes, quite that!" remarked Ivan Petrovitch.
"Oh, what a dreadful calamity! A wretched vase smashed, and a man half dead with remorse about it," said Lizabetha Prokofievna, loudly. "What made you so dreadfully startled, Lef Nicolaievitch?" she added, a little timidly. "Come, my dear boy! cheer up. You really alarm me, taking the accident so to heart."
"Do you forgive me all--ALL, besides the vase, I mean?" said the prince, rising from his seat once more, but the old gentleman caught his hand and drew him down again--he seemed unwilling to let him go.
"C'est tres-curieux et c'est tres-serieux," he whispered across the table to Ivan Petrovitch, rather loudly. Probably the prince heard him.
"So that I have not offended any of you? You will not believe how happy I am to be able to think so. It is as it should be. As if I COULD offend anyone here! I should offend you again by even suggesting such a thing."
"Calm yourself, my dear fellow. You are exaggerating again; you really have no occasion to be so grateful to us. It is a feeling which does you great credit, but an exaggeration, for all that."
"I am not exactly thanking you, I am only feeling a growing admiration for you--it makes me happy to look at you. I dare say I am speaking very foolishly, but I must speak--I must explain, if it be out of nothing better than self-respect."
All he said and did was abrupt, confused, feverish--very likely the words he spoke, as often as not, were not those he wished to say. He seemed to inquire whether he MIGHT speak. His eyes lighted on Princess Bielokonski.
"All right, my friend, talk away, talk away!" she remarked. "Only don't lose your breath; you were in such a hurry when you began, and look what you've come to now! Don't be afraid of speaking-- all these ladies and gentlemen have seen far stranger people than yourself; you don't astonish THEM. You are nothing out-of-the-way remarkable, you know. You've done nothing but break a vase, and give us all a fright."
"Wasn't it you," he said, suddenly turning to the old gentleman, "who saved the student Porkunoff and a clerk called Shoabrin from being sent to Siberia, two or three months since?"
The old dignitary blushed a little, and murmured that the prince had better not excite himself further.

She put her questions very quickly and talked fast

"Is it really you?" muttered the prince, not quite himself as yet, and recognizing her with a start of amazement. "Oh yes, of course," he added, "this is our rendezvous. I fell asleep here."
"What? At your house?" she asked, but without much surprise. "He was alive yesterday evening, wasn't he? How could you sleep here after that?" she cried, growing suddenly animated.
"Oh, but he didn't kill himself; the pistol didn't go off." Aglaya insisted on hearing the whole story. She hurried the prince along, but interrupted him with all sorts of questions, nearly all of which were irrelevant. Among other things, she seemed greatly interested in every word that Evgenie Pavlovitch had said, and made the prince repeat that part of the story over and over again.
"Well, that'll do; we must be quick," she concluded, after hearing all. "We have only an hour here, till eight; I must be home by then without fail, so that they may not find out that I came and sat here with you; but I've come on business. I have a great deal to say to you. But you have bowled me over considerably with your news. As to Hippolyte, I think his pistol was bound not to go off; it was more consistent with the whole affair. Are you sure he really wished to blow his brains out, and that there was no humbug about the matter?"
"Bring it by all means; you needn't ask him. He will be delighted, you may be sure; for, in all probability, he shot at himself simply in order that I might read his confession. Don't laugh at what I say, please, Lef Nicolaievitch, because it may very well be the case."
She put her questions very quickly and talked fast, every now and then forgetting what she had begun to say, and not finishing her sentence. She seemed to be impatient to warn the prince about something or other. She was in a state of unusual excitement, and though she put on a brave and even defiant air, she seemed to be rather alarmed. She was dressed very simply, but this suited her well. She continually trembled and blushed, and she sat on the very edge of the seat.
The fact that the prince confirmed her idea, about Hippolyte shooting himself that she might read his confession, surprised her greatly.
"Well--how am I to explain? He was very anxious that we should all come around him, and say we were so sorry for him, and that we loved him very much, and all that; and that we hoped he wouldn't kill himself, but remain alive. Very likely he thought more of you than the rest of us, because he mentioned you at such a moment, though perhaps he did not know himself that he had you in his mind's eye."
"I don't understand you. How could he have me in view, and not be aware of it himself? And yet, I don't know--perhaps I do. Do you know I have intended to poison myself at least thirty times--ever since I was thirteen or so--and to write to my parents before I did it? I used to think how nice it would be to lie in my coffin, and have them all weeping over me and saying it was all their fault for being so cruel, and all that--what are you smiling at?" she added, knitting her brow. "What do YOU think of when you go mooning about alone? I suppose you imagine yourself a field- marshal, and think you have conquered Napoleon?"
"Well, I really have thought something of the sort now and then, especially when just dozing off," laughed the prince. "Only it is the Austrians whom I conquer--not Napoleon."
"I don't wish to joke with you, Lef Nicolaievitch. I shall see Hippolyte myself. Tell him so. As for you, I think you are behaving very badly, because it is not right to judge a man's soul as you are judging Hippolyte's. You have no gentleness, but only justice--so you are unjust."
"I think you are unfair towards me," he said. "There is nothing wrong in the thoughts I ascribe to Hippolyte; they are only natural. But of course I don't know for certain what he thought. Perhaps he thought nothing, but simply longed to see human faces once more, and to hear human praise and feel human affection. Who knows? Only it all came out wrong, somehow. Some people have luck, and everything comes out right with them; others have none, and never a thing turns out fortunately."
"Quite so; I understand. I understand quite well. You are very-- Well, how did she appear to you? What did she look like? No, I don't want to know anything about her," said Aglaya, angrily; "don't interrupt me--"
"Look here; this is what I called you here for. I wish to make you a--to ask you to be my friend. What do you stare at me like that for?" she added, almost angrily.
The prince certainly had darted a rather piercing look at her, and now observed that she had begun to blush violently. At such moments, the more Aglaya blushed, the angrier she grew with herself; and this was clearly expressed in her eyes, which flashed like fire. As a rule, she vented her wrath on her unfortunate companion, be it who it might. She was very conscious of her own shyness, and was not nearly so talkative as her sisters for this reason--in fact, at times she was much too quiet. When, therefore, she was bound to talk, especially at such delicate moments as this, she invariably did so with an air of haughty defiance. She always knew beforehand when she was going to blush, long before the blush came.

Then for a day and a half I neither slept

"How was I to tell?" replied Rogojin, with an angry laugh. "I did my best to catch her tripping in Moscow, but did not succeed. However, I caught hold of her one day, and said: 'You are engaged to be married into a respectable family, and do you know what sort of a woman you are? THAT'S the sort of woman you are,' I said."
"She said, 'I wouldn't even have you for a footman now, much less for a husband.' 'I shan't leave the house,' I said, 'so it doesn't matter.' 'Then I shall call somebody and have you kicked out,' she cried. So then I rushed at her, and beat her till she was bruised all over."
"Then for a day and a half I neither slept, nor ate, nor drank, and would not leave her. I knelt at her feet: 'I shall die here,' I said, 'if you don't forgive me; and if you have me turned out, I shall drown myself; because, what should I be without you now?' She was like a madwoman all that day; now she would cry; now she would threaten me with a knife; now she would abuse me. She called in Zaleshoff and Keller, and showed me to them, shamed me in their presence. 'Let's all go to the theatre,' she says, 'and leave him here if he won't go--it's not my business. They'll give you some tea, Parfen Semeonovitch, while I am away, for you must be hungry.' She came back from the theatre alone. 'Those cowards wouldn't come,' she said. 'They are afraid of you, and tried to frighten me, too. "He won't go away as he came," they said, "he'll cut your throat--see if he doesn't." Now, I shall go to my bedroom, and I shall not even lock my door, just to show you how much I am afraid of you. You must be shown that once for all. Did you have tea?' 'No,' I said, 'and I don't intend to.' 'Ha, ha! you are playing off your pride against your stomach! That sort of heroism doesn't sit well on you,' she said.
"With that she did as she had said she would; she went to bed, and did not lock her door. In the morning she came out. 'Are you quite mad?' she said, sharply. 'Why, you'll die of hunger like this.' 'Forgive me,' I said. 'No, I won't, and I won't marry you. I've said it. Surely you haven't sat in this chair all night without sleeping?' 'I didn't sleep,' I said. 'H'm! how sensible of you. And are you going to have no breakfast or dinner today?' 'I told you I wouldn't. Forgive me!' 'You've no idea how unbecoming this sort of thing is to you,' she said, 'it's like putting a saddle on a cow's back. Do you think you are frightening me? My word, what a dreadful thing that you should sit here and eat no food! How terribly frightened I am!' She wasn't angry long, and didn't seem to remember my offence at all. I was surprised, for she is a vindictive, resentful woman--but then I thought that perhaps she despised me too much to feel any resentment against me. And that's the truth.
"She came up to me and said, 'Do you know who the Pope of Rome is?' 'I've heard of him,' I said. 'I suppose you've read the Universal History, Parfen Semeonovitch, haven't you?' she asked. 'I've learned nothing at all,' I said. 'Then I'll lend it to you to read. You must know there was a Roman Pope once, and he was very angry with a certain Emperor; so the Emperor came and neither ate nor drank, but knelt before the Pope's palace till he should be forgiven. And what sort of vows do you think that Emperor was making during all those days on his knees? Stop, I'll read it to you!' Then she read me a lot of verses, where it said that the Emperor spent all the time vowing vengeance against the Pope. 'You don't mean to say you don't approve of the poem, Parfen Semeonovitch,' she says. 'All you have read out is perfectly true,' say I. 'Aha!' says she, 'you admit it's true, do you? And you are making vows to yourself that if I marry you, you will remind me of all this, and take it out of me.' 'I don't know,' I say, 'perhaps I was thinking like that, and perhaps I was not. I'm not thinking of anything just now.' 'What are your thoughts, then?' 'I'm thinking that when you rise from your chair and go past me, I watch you, and follow you with my eyes; if your dress does but rustle, my heart sinks; if you leave the room, I remember every little word and action, and what your voice sounded like, and what you said. I thought of nothing all last night, but sat here listening to your sleeping breath, and heard you move a little, twice.' 'And as for your attack upon me,' she says, 'I suppose you never once thought of THAT?' 'Perhaps I did think of it, and perhaps not,' I say. And what if I don't either forgive you or marry, you' 'I tell you I shall go and drown myself.' 'H'm!' she said, and then relapsed into silence. Then she got angry, and went out. 'I suppose you'd murder me before you drowned yourself, though!' she cried as she left the room.

The incredulous amazement with which all regarded the prince did not last long

Silence immediately fell on the room; all looked at the prince as though they neither understood, nor hoped to understand. Gania was motionless with horror.
Nastasia's arrival was a most unexpected and overwhelming event to all parties. In the first place, she had never been before. Up to now she had been so haughty that she had never even asked Gania to introduce her to his parents. Of late she had not so much as mentioned them. Gania was partly glad of this; but still he had put it to her debit in the account to be settled after marriage.
He would have borne anything from her rather than this visit. But one thing seemed to him quite clear-her visit now, and the present of her portrait on this particular day, pointed out plainly enough which way she intended to make her decision!
The incredulous amazement with which all regarded the prince did not last long, for Nastasia herself appeared at the door and passed in, pushing by the prince again.
"At last I've stormed the citadel! Why do you tie up your bell?" she said, merrily, as she pressed Gania's hand, the latter having rushed up to her as soon as she made her appearance. "What are you looking so upset about? Introduce me, please!"
The bewildered Gania introduced her first to Varia, and both women, before shaking hands, exchanged looks of strange import. Nastasia, however, smiled amiably; but Varia did not try to look amiable, and kept her gloomy expression. She did not even vouchsafe the usual courteous smile of etiquette. Gania darted a terrible glance of wrath at her for this, but Nina Alexandrovna, mended matters a little when Gania introduced her at last. Hardly, however, had the old lady begun about her " highly gratified feelings," and so on, when Nastasia left her, and flounced into a chair by Gania's side in the corner by the window, and cried: "Where's your study? and where are the--the lodgers? You do take in lodgers, don't you?"
Gania looked dreadfully put out, and tried to say something in reply, but Nastasia interrupted him:
"Why, where are you going to squeeze lodgers in here? Don't you use a study? Does this sort of thing pay?" she added, turning to Nina Alexandrovna.
"Well, it is troublesome, rather," said the latter; "but I suppose it will 'pay' pretty well. We have only just begun, however--"
Again Nastasia Philipovna did not hear the sentence out. She glanced at Gania, and cried, laughing, "What a face! My goodness, what a face you have on at this moment!"
Indeed, Gania did not look in the least like himself. His bewilderment and his alarmed perplexity passed off, however, and his lips now twitched with rage as he continued to stare evilly at his laughing guest, while his countenance became absolutely livid.
There was another witness, who, though standing at the door motionless and bewildered himself, still managed to remark Gania's death-like pallor, and the dreadful change that had come over his face. This witness was the prince, who now advanced in alarm and muttered to Gania:
It was clear that he came out with these words quite spontaneously, on the spur of the moment. But his speech was productive of much--for it appeared that all. Gania's rage now overflowed upon the prince. He seized him by the shoulder and gazed with an intensity of loathing and revenge at him, but said nothing--as though his feelings were too strong to permit of words.