Besides the elevated and more solid individuals enumerated, there were present a few younger though not less elegant guests. Besides Prince S⁠⸺ and Evgenie Pavlovitch, we must name the eminent and fascinating Prince N⁠⸺, once the vanquisher of female hearts all over Europe. This gentleman was no longer in the first bloom of youth⁠—he was forty-five, but still very handsome. He was well off, and lived, as a rule, abroad, and was noted as a good teller of stories. Then came a few guests belonging to a lower stratum of society⁠—people who, like the Epanchins themselves, moved only occasionally in this exalted sphere. The Epanchins liked to draft among their more elevated guests a few picked representatives of this lower stratum, and Lizabetha Prokofievna received much praise for this practice, which proved, her friends said, that she was a woman of tact. The Epanchins prided themselves upon the good opinion people held of them.