baptismal name, Anastasia, and a play upon her perpetual state of ecstatic excitement,--is an old maid, who was once accounted a great beauty, and in consequence is fond of wearing golden bands around her romantically frizzed curls. Her languishing, light-blue eyes were once compared to forget-me-nots sprinkled with sugar, and her complexion is suggestive of Swedish kid dusted with violet powder. She was young twenty years since, and has forgotten to stop being so. She once nearly married a prince of the blood, and has lately been jilted by an infantry-officer. She has come to Erlach Court to recover from this last blow, perhaps in hopes of eventually obtaining a recompense for the loss of the captain.

Little Freddy is a very pretty, spoiled child, in a sailor suit, with bare legs very much scratched; and the master and mistress of the house are two genial people, who eight years previously, both having outlived the bloom of their early illusions, although she was only six-and-twenty and the captain thirty, had "patched together their tattered lives," which means that they had married each other, not so much in the hope of being happy themselves, as in that of making two other fellow-beings miserable.

Although, however, they had thus married for pique, and though each had brought to the union nothing save a remnant of unfortunate love for somebody else, although they quarrelled with each other continually, they got along together not much worse than two-thirds of the married people whose union has been the result of passionate attachment.

All were waiting for the after-dinner coffee, which the mistress of the mansion, in dread of spots, never allowed to be served in the drawing-room, except on state occasions. Its appearance was unpardonably delayed to-day, and the famous Erlach Court sociability was beginning to degenerate into yawning ennui.

With the exception of Baron Rohritz, who had been occupied the entire time in gazing with half-closed eyes into the clouds of blue smoke from his cigar, all present had done their best to enliven the prevailing mood: the general had told anecdotes from the 'Fliegende Blätter,' Freddy had succeeded in producing a particularly charming noise by running a wet forefinger around the rims of various wineglasses, Fräulein Stasy had suggested a poetic comparison between dry storms and the tearless anguish of a stricken heart, and the married pair had squabbled with special earnestness about the most diverse matters, first about the potato-rot, then about a problematical constitution for Poland; and yet the conversation had failed to become fluent.

For a few minutes an oppressive silence had prevailed; the husband and wife, usually equal to any emergency in this direction, had ceased even to quarrel. The ticking of the watches was almost audible, when the servant brought in on a salver the contents of the post-bag which had just arrived.

"While the captain hastily opened a newspaper, that he might read aloud to the nervous Stasy, with a harrowing attention to details, the latest cholera bulletins, Frau von Leskjewitsch leisurely opened two letters: the first came from a Trieste tradesman and announced the arrival of a late invoice of the best disinfectants, the second apparently contained intelligence of some importance. After she had read it, Frau von Leskjewitsch laid it, with a pleased expression, upon the table.

"Children," she exclaimed,--it was a habit of hers thus to apostrophize people well on in years, for, except Freddy, who was not yet eight, and the general, who dyed his hair, all present were more or less gray-headed,--"children, our circle is about to receive an addition; my sister-in-law has just written me that she accepts our invitation and will arrive here to-morrow or the day after."

"Bravo!" exclaimed the captain, who on hearing this news quite forgot to go on teasing Stasy, and suppressed three entire cholera-telegrams. "I shall be delighted to see my little niece."

Freddy said, meditatively, "I should like to know what my aunt will bring me."

The rest of the party received the joyful tidings without emotion, partly because the long-looked-for coffee at that moment made its appearance, and partly because of the other three Stasy alone had any personal acquaintance with the Baroness Meineck--as the captain's sister was called--or her daughter. After the coffee had been cleared away, and whilst the master and mistress of the house were arguing outside in the corridor, most uselessly and most energetically, as to the train by which the expected guests would arrive, the general, who was playing his usual evening game of tric-trac with Rohritz, sighed,--

"Our comfort is all over."

Rohritz raised his eyebrows inquiringly: "Do you mean that in honour of these fresh guests we shall be obliged to put on a dress-coat at dinner every day?"

"Not exactly that," said the general; "the ladies themselves are not too much given to elegance; but"--the general's face lengthened--"we shall be obliged to be cautious in our conversation."

Rohritz smiled significantly. "Double sixes!" he exclaimed, throwing the dice on the green cloth and moving his men with cunning calculation on the backgammon-board.

Meanwhile, the garrulous general continued, without waiting to be questioned: "Leskjewitsch is patient with his sister, and is excessively fond of his niece, but, between ourselves,"--he chuckled to himself,--"Leskjewitsch is a fool!"

If anything gave him more satisfaction than to live at the expense of others, it was to be witty, or rather malicious, at their expense. Rohritz thought this bad form, and was silent.

"I do not know the ladies personally," the general went on, rubbing his hands, "but for originality"--here he tapped his forehead with his forefinger--"neither mother nor daughter is far behind the captain. The mother is an old blue-stocking, and has been travelling all over the world for the last ten years, collecting materials for an historical work upon the Medicines, or whatever you choose to call them----"

"The Medici, perhaps?" Rohritz interpolated.

"Very likely; I only know that there was an apothecary in the family, and that there were pills in their scutcheon, and that the worthy Baroness's work is to be eight volumes long," said the general.

Stasy, who had been leaning back in a luxurious arm-chair, moved to tears for the hundredth time over the last chapter of 'Paul and Virginia,' her favourite book,--the death of the heroine, she said, touched her especially because she could so easily fancy herself in Virginia's place,--now laid her book aside, since her tears seemed to arouse no sympathy, and joined in the conversation:

"You are talking of the Meinecks?"

"Yes. Are you personally acquainted with the ladies?" asked the general.

"Yes,--not very intimately, though. I always held myself a little aloof from them, but last summer we were at the same country resort,--I was with a sick friend at Zalow,--and I saw something and heard a great deal of the Meinecks."

"And are all the strange things that are said of them true?" asked the general.

"I really do not know what is said of them," replied Stasy, "but it certainly would be difficult to exaggerate their peculiarities. The Baroness, unfortunately too late in life, has arrived at the conclusion that the continuance of the human species is a crime. One of her manias consists in giving à tort et à travers, wherever she may chance to be, short lectures, gratis, upon the American Shakers and their system. But, with all her zeal, she has hitherto succeeded in making but few proselytes. Even her