As for the prince, he was always rather too grave. He was away only once during all this bustling six months, and that was in order to pay a short visit to Courland that he might see for himself that Pampeln would be worthy to receive its mistress in the spring. Pierre Olsdorf loved his wife; but with his serious character, and the temperament of a man born in northern latitudes, he knew nothing of trouble and fierce passions. It seemed, too, that it was well he was not otherwise, for Lise was still the woman General Podoi had described her as--gentle, amiable, free from inquietude and jealousy. Her husband was for her, above all, a friend. Neither her heart nor her passions seemed to require more from him. So that all was for the best, and the Countess Barineff, justly proud of her work, was feeling the satisfaction its contemplation gave her when one day the good fellow Podoi reminded her of the promise she had made to accept his name after her daughter's marriage. "Do you, then, still think of making me your wife?" asked Lise's mother. "More than ever," replied the general, in a feeling voice. "Come, now, have not I, too, worked for your daughter's happiness, and do not I deserve a reward? What is the only one I covet? Reflect, my dear Madeleine; I have loved you for fifteen years." "True; and that has aged us both, eh?" "You are still young and beautiful. As for me, you will give me back my youth." The general had spoken those words with so dandified an air that the countess could not help smiling in offering him her hand. "You give it me?" exclaimed Podoi, seizing the hand and covering it with kisses. "I can not do otherwise," said Madeleine. "Will not people laugh at us a little, though? I shall soon be a grandmother." "Well, well, we will begin by having grandchildren, that is all." And the general straightened himself proudly, while the ex-actress tried to summon a faint blush at this freedom of speech in her old lover. Within a fortnight, very quietly, the marriage of the Countess Barineff and General Podoi was celebrated at the Church of Isaac. The general, in truth, seemed younger than he was by the fifteen years of his constancy and devotion. The same day, by a strange coincidence, Dumesnil appeared anew in the character of Georges Dandin at the Odéon. CHAPTER III. AT PAMPELN. Toward the end of May, after a most brilliant winter season, all the society of St. Petersburg made ready for its departure. The sledges were put away in the coach-houses, the theaters were closed, and very soon all that were not kept back by their duties or business began their flight. Some went to Yalta, to be at the sea-side with the court, which goes every year for the summer to the Palace of Livadia; others to the Caucasus, to hunt the lynx and the bear. Many prepared to refill their places at Paris and the watering-places of north-eastern France, in the charming Russian colony which is so truly French in its elegance and tastes.