their mother used to be,” said Countess Fuks. “Still, their father, too, was very, very handsome.”
“How could they educate their children there?” asked the hostess.
“They say, nicely. They say that the young man is as nice, as amiable, and as cultured as though he had been brought up in Paris.”
“I predict great success to that young person,” said a homely spinster. “All those Siberian ladies have something pleasantly trivial about them, which everybody, however, likes.”
“Yes, yes,” said another spinster.
“Here we have another rich prospective bride,” said a third spinster.
The old colonel, of German origin, who had come to Moscow three years before, in order to marry a rich girl, decided as quickly as possible, before the young people knew anything about it, to present himself and propose. But the spinsters and ladies thought almost the same about the young Siberian.