Her eyes were aglow with inspiration, and a slight tremor of rapture passed over her lovely features once or twice. She continued to recite: “Once there came a vision glorious, Mystic, dreadful, wondrous fair; Burned itself into his spirit, And abode for ever there! “Never more—from that sweet moment— Gazéd he on womankind; He was dumb to love and wooing And to all their graces blind. “Full of love for that sweet vision, Brave and pure he took the field; With his blood he stained the letters N. P. B. upon his shield. “‘Lumen caeli, sancta Rosa!’ Shouting on the foe he fell, And like thunder rang his war-cry O’er the cowering infidel. “Then within his distant castle, Home returned, he dreamed his days— Silent, sad,—and when death took him He was mad, the legend says.” When recalling all this afterwards the prince could not for the life of him understand how to reconcile the beautiful, sincere, pure nature of the girl with the irony of this jest. That it was a jest there was no doubt whatever; he knew that well enough, and had good reason, too, for his conviction; for during her recitation of the ballad Aglaya had deliberately changed the letters A. N. B. into N. P. B. He was quite sure she had not done this by accident, and that his ears had not deceived him. At all events her performance—which was a joke, of course, if rather a crude one,—was premeditated. They had evidently talked (and laughed) over the ‘poor knight’ for more than a month. Yet Aglaya had brought out these letters N. P. B. not only without the slightest appearance of irony, or even any particular accentuation, but with so even and unbroken an appearance of seriousness that assuredly anyone might have supposed that these initials were the original ones written in the ballad. The thing made an uncomfortable impression upon the prince. Of course Mrs. Epanchin saw nothing either in the change of initials or in the insinuation embodied therein. General Epanchin only knew that there was a recitation of verses going on, and took no further interest in the matter. Of the rest of the audience, many had understood the allusion and wondered both at the daring of the lady and at the motive underlying it, but tried to show no sign of their feelings. But Evgenie Pavlovitch (as the prince was ready to wager) both comprehended and tried his best to show that he comprehended; his smile was too mocking to leave any doubt on that point. “How beautiful that is!” cried Mrs. Epanchin, with sincere admiration. “Whose is it?” “Pushkin’s, mama, of course! Don’t disgrace us all by showing your ignorance,” said Adelaida. “As soon as we reach home give it to me to read.” “I don’t think we have a copy of Pushkin in the house.” “There are a couple of torn volumes somewhere; they have been lying about from time immemorial,” added Alexandra.