thing that did not specially concern herself, had the habit of sometimes not heeding what did interest her. She interrupted Anna: —
"Well! This world is full of woes and tribulations, and I am all worn out to-day."
"What is it?" asked Anna, striving to repress a smile.
"I am beginning to weary of the ineffectual attempts to get at the truth, and sometimes I am utterly discouraged. The work of the Little Sisters" — this was a philanthropic and religiously patriotic institution — "used to get along splendidly, but there is nothing to be done with these men," added the Countess Lidya Ivanovna, with an air of ironical resignation to fate. "They got hold of the idea, they mutilated it, and then they judge it so meanly, so wretchedly. Two or three men, your husband among them, understand all the significance of this work; but the others only discredit it. Yesterday I had a letter from Pravdin ...."
Pravdin was a famous Panslavist, who lived abroad, and the Countess Lidya Ivanovna related what he had said in his letter.
Then she went on to describe the troubles and snares that blocked the work of uniting the churches, and finally departed in haste, because it was the day for her to be present at the meeting of some society or other, and at the sitting of the Slavonic Committee.
"All this is just as it has been, but why did I never notice it before?" said Anna to herself. "Was she very irritable to-day? But at any rate, it is ridiculous: her aims are charitable, she is a Christian, and yet she is angry with every one, and every one is her enemy; and yet all her enemies are working for Christianity and charity."
After the departure of the Countess Lidya Ivanovna, came a friend, the wife of a director, who told her all the news of the city. At three o'clock she went out, promising to be back in time for dinner. Alekseï Aleksandrovitch was at the meeting of the ministry. The hour before dinner, which Anna spent alone, she em-
