Liza blushed a little, and thought to herself, “What an odd man!” Lavretsky stopped for a minute in the hall.

Liza entered the drawing-room, in which Panshine’s voice and laugh were making themselves heard.  He was communicating some piece of town gossip to Maria Dmitrievna and Gedeonovsky, both of whom had by this time returned from the garden, and he was laughly loudly at his own story.  At the name of Lavretsky, Maria Dmitrievna became nervous and turned pale, but went forward to receive him.

“How are you? how are you, my dear cousin?” she exclaimed, with an almost lachrymose voice, dwelling on each word she uttered.  “How glad I am to see you!”

“How are you, my good cousin?” replied Lavretsky, with a friendly pressure of her outstretched hand.  “Is all well with you?”

“Sit clown, sit down, my dear Fedor Ivanovich.  Oh, how delighted I am!  But first let me introduce my daughter Liza.”

“I have already introduced myself to Lizaveta Mikhailovna,” interrupted Lavretsky.

“Monsieur Panshine—­Sergius Petrovich Gedeonovsky.  But do sit down.  I look at you, and, really, I can scarcely trust my eyes.  But tell me about your health; is it good?”

“I am quite well, as you can see.  And you, too, cousin—­if I can say so without bringing you bad luck[A]—­you are none the worse for these seven years.”

[Footnote A:  A reference to the superstition of the “evil eye,” still rife among the peasants in Russia.  Though it has died out among the educated classes, yet the phrase, “not to cast an evil eye,” is still made use of in conversation.]

“When I think what a number of years it is since we last saw one another,” musingly said Maria Dmitrievna.  “Where do you come from now?  Where have you left—­that’s to say, I meant”—­she hurriedly corrected herself—­“I meant to say, shall you stay with us long?”

“I come just now from Berlin,” replied Lavretsky, “and to-morrow I shall go into the country—­to stay there, in all probability, a long time.”

“I suppose you are going to live at Lavriki?”

“No, not at Lavriki; but I have a small property about five-and-twenty versts from here, and I am going there.”

“Is that the property which Glafira Petrovna left you?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“But really, Fedor Ivanovich, you have such a charming house at Lavriki.”

Lavretsky frowned a little.

“Yes—­but I have a cottage on the other estate too; I don’t require any more just now.  That place is—­most convenient for me at present.”

Maria Dmitrievna became once more so embarrassed that she actually sat upright in her chair, and let her hands drop by her side.  Panshine came to the rescue, and entered into conversation with Lavretsky.  Maria Dmitrievna by degrees grew calm, leant back again comfortably in her chair, and from time to time contributed a word or two to the conversation.  But still she kept looking at her guest so pitifully, sighing so significantly, and shaking her head so sadly, that at last he lost all patience, and asked her, somewhat brusquely, if she was unwell.