A Nest of the Gentry [antikvár]

FAIR spring day was drawing to a close. Little rosy clouds hung high in the clear sky, seeming to melt in the azure depths as they floated slowly past. Before the open window of a handsome house in the suburbs of the gubernia town of 0-—(it was in the year 1842) sat two women; one was about fifty yeairs of age, the other an old lady of seventy. The name of the former was Marya Dmitriyevna Kalitina. Her husband, ex-public prosecutor of the gubernia, noted in his day as a man of business, an active, resourceful man of stubborn and choleric temper, had been dead for ten years. He had received a good education and graduated the university; but having been born among the humbler orders he realized early in life the necessity of making his way in the world and lining his pocket. It had been a love match on Marya Dmitriyevna's side, for he had been a good-looking man, clever, and amiable when he chose. Marya Dmitriyevna {nee Pestova) had lost her parents in childhood. She spent some years in Moscow in a ladies' institute and on her return lived on the family estate in the village of Pokrovskoye, about fifty versts from 0—with her aunt and an elder brother. This brother shortly moved to St. Petersburg, where