ced a certain excitement and agitation in Tarhov. . . . He disappeared for hours at a time, and I did not know where he had got to--a thing which had never happened before. I was on the point of demanding, in the name of friendship, a full explanation. . . . He anticipated me.

One day I was sitting in his room. . . . "Petya," he said suddenly, blushing gaily, and looking me straight in the face, "I must introduce you to my muse."

"Your muse! how queerly you talk! Like a classicist. (Romanticism was at that time, in 1837, at its full height.) As if I had not known it ever so long--your muse! Have you written a new poem, or what?"

"You don't understand what I mean," rejoined Tarhov, still laughing and blushing. "I will introduce you to a living muse."

"Aha! so that's it! But how is she--yours?"

"Why, because . . . But hush, I believe it's she coming here."

There was the light click of hurrying heels, the door opened, and in the doorway appeared a girl of eighteen, in a chintz cotton gown, with a black cloth cape on her shoulders, and a black straw hat on her fair, rather curly hair. On seeing me she was frightened and disconcerted, and was beating a retreat . . . but Tarhov at once rushed to meet her.