Eventually he became quite certain that his mother would consent to his marriage with Miss Anney, but he was anxious as to how she would agree. And in this regard he was much distressed. His mother, judged by former requirements and conceptions, was a person of more than medium education. She possessed high social refinement, read a number of books, and was proficient in the French and Italian languages. During her younger days she passed considerable time abroad, but only her closest friends could tell how many national and hereditary prejudices were concealed in her and to what extent all that was not Polish, particularly if it did not of necessity come from France, appeared to her peculiar, outlandish, strange, and even shocking. This appeared accidentally once before the attack upon Ladislaus when she saw Miss Anney's English prayer-book and, opening it, noticed a prayer beginning with "Oh Lord." Belonging to a generation which did not study English, and having lived in retirement for many years in Jastrzeb, Pani Krzycki could not imagine the Lord other than a being with yellow whiskers, dressed in checkered clothes, and to Marynia's great amusement could not by any means understand how the Divinity could be thus addressed. In vain Ladislaus explained to her that in the French and Polish languages analogical titles are given to God. She regarded that as something different, and exacted a promise from Miss Anney that she would pray from a Polish book, which she promised to buy for her. Finally the fact that Miss Anney was not in all probability a member of the nobility would play an important part. Ladislaus feared that his mother, having consented to the marriage, might in the depths and secrecy of her soul, deem it a mésalliance. This thought irritated and depressed him immeasurably and was one of the reasons why he postponed his consultation with his mother until their arrival in Warsaw. He was angered yet more at his enforced confinement in his bed; so that for three days he declared each evening that he would rise the following morning, and when on the fourth day Miss Anney and Marynia said to him through the doorway, "Good-day," he actually did get up, but in his weakened condition, he suffered from dizziness and was forced to lie down again. He was steadily improving, however; he continued to sigh more and more and felt his inactivity most keenly. "I have got enough of this loquacious doctor," he said to Gronski, "enough of dressings and iodoform. I envy not only you, sir, but even Dolhanski, who is roaming about on my horses all over creation, and very likely reaches as far as Gorek." "He does," answered Gronski gayly, "and this leads me to think that he makes a mystery of it, for he has ceased to talk about those ladies."