She put on a round straw hat, a child’s hat, just such a one as her daughter was wearing, only a little larger, and we went into the garden. I walked beside her. In the fresh air, in the shade of the tall limes, I thought her face looked sweeter than ever, especially when she turned a little and threw back her head so as to look up at me from under the brim of her hat. If it had not been for Priemkov walking behind us, and the little girl skipping about in front of us, I could really have fancied I was three-and-twenty, instead of thirty-five; and that I was just on the point of starting for Berlin, especially as the garden we were walking in was very much like the garden in Madame Eltsov’s estate. I could not help expressing my feelings to Vera Nikolaevna. ‘Every one tells me that I am very little changed externally,’ she answered, ‘though indeed I have remained just the same inwardly too.’ We came up to a little Chinese summer-house. ‘We had no summer-house like this at Osinovka,’ she said; ‘but you mustn’t mind its being so tumbledown and discoloured: it’s very nice and cool inside.’ We went into the house. I looked round. ‘I tell you what, Vera Nikolaevna,’ I observed, ‘you let them bring a table and some chairs in here. Here it is really delicious. I will read you here Goethe’s _Faust_--that’s the thing I am going to read you.’ ‘Yes, there are no flies here,’ she observed simply. ‘When will you come?’ ‘The day after to-morrow.’ ‘Very well,’ she answered. ‘I will arrange it.’ Natasha, who had come into the summer-house with us, suddenly gave a shriek and jumped back, quite pale. ‘What is it?’ inquired Vera Nikolaevna. ‘O mammy,’ said the little girl, pointing into the corner, ‘look, what a dreadful spider!’ Vera Nikolaevna looked into the corner: a fat mottled spider was crawling slowly along the wall. ‘What is there to fear in that?’ she said. ‘It won’t bite, look.’ And before I had time to stop her, she took up the hideous insect, let it run over her hand, and threw it away. ‘Well, you are brave!’ I cried. ‘Where is the bravery in that? It wasn’t a venomous spider.’ ‘One can see you are as well up in Natural History as ever, but I couldn’t have held it in my hand.’ ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of!’ repeated Vera Nikolaevna. Natasha looked at us both in silence, and laughed. ‘How like your mother she is!’ I remarked. ‘Yes,’ rejoined Vera Nikolaevna with a smile of pleasure, ‘it is a great happiness to me. God grant she may be like her, not in face only!’ We were called in to dinner, and after dinner I went away. _N.B._--The dinner was very good and well-cooked, an observation in parenthesis for you, you gourmand! To-morrow I shall take them _Faust_. I’m afraid old Goethe and I may not come off very well. I will write and tell you all about it most exactly.