life the place in which her life was undone, and the man whom she could not forget and who was the author of her undoing, then it was due to her; and everybody who has the slightest heart ought to understand this. And let Aunt say," she continued, "whether I could betray her secret and whether an impossible situation would not have been created for her." The usually quiet and gentle Zosia became so wrought up in defence of her friend that she plainly told Pani Krzycki that even if Laudie fell in love with Miss Anney without any requital that it would be only what he deserved and, besides, since "Aninka" did not accept his proposal and gave him a week's time for consideration, he could withdraw it; in such case, however, "Aninka" would not be the only one whose respect he forfeited. But all this was pouring oil upon fire and only increased the ire of Pani Krzycki who declared that, at any rate, she and her son were victims of a plot. After which she moved to a hotel, announcing at the time of her departure that her feet would never again cross the threshold of that house. Nevertheless, the bitterness and anger which accumulated in her heart were not directed against Pani Otocka alone. Her son also had wounded her heart deeply and awakened a whole series of painful recollections, connected with the memory of her husband. For her husband, a man worshipped by her during the first years of their marital life for his manifold good qualities and extraordinary beauty, had caused her not a little mortification through his immoral life in relation to women in general and the female residents of Jastrzeb and its vicinity in particular. To Pani Krzycki it was no secret, that, in the course of long years, cows were led continually from the manor cow-houses as gifts or rather as rewards to various Kates and Marys and that in Jastrzeb could be found quite a number of step-brothers and step-sisters of her children. So she shed copious tears over this state of affairs until almost the last year of her husband's life. In her time she suffered in her own self-love and her womanly dignity as a wife and mother. Afterwards she forgave everything, but after the death of her husband, as a woman deeply religious, she lived in continual fear at the thought of the Divine Tribunal, before which the deceased appeared. For whole years she tried to supplicate for him forgiveness through tears, fasts, alms, and prayers. Above all she determined to bring up her son in such a manner that he would never fall into the errors of his father. She watched him in his boyhood days, like the eye in her head; she shielded him from all evil influences. After sending him to school she confided the care of him to her relative, a priest, and to Gronski, in whose morality she justly believed. And when the son grew up, when after finishing school, he attended the university, and afterwards assumed the management of the Jastrzeb estate, she had that