while he simply rolled his eyes, looking me up and down. And Alexey Sergeitch was very much put out about it, but I said to him: "Alexis," said I, "please don't you be put out; you ought to know me better!" And he answered me: "Don't disturb yourself, Melanie!" And these very diamonds are now round my medallion of Alexey Grigorievitch—you've seen it, I dare say, my dear;—I wear it on feast-days on a St. George ribbon, because he was a brave hero, a knight of St. George: he burned the Turks.'
For all that, Malania Pavlovna was a very kind-hearted woman; she was easily pleased. 'She's not one to snarl, nor to sneer,' the maids used to say of her. Malania Pavlovna was passionately fond of sweet things—and a special old woman who looked after nothing but the jam, and so was called the jam-maid, would bring her, ten times a day, a china dish with rose-leaves crystallised in sugar, or bar-berries in honey, or sherbet of bananas. Malania Pavlovna was afraid of solitude—dreadful thoughts are apt to come over one, she would say—and was almost always surrounded by companions, whom she would urgently implore: 'Talk, talk! why do you sit like that, simply keeping your seats warm!' and they would begin twittering like canaries. She was no less devout than Alexey Sergeitch, and was very fond of praying; but as, in her
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