It had been a love-match on Marya Dmitrievna's side.

He was not bad-looking, was clever and could be very agreeable when he chose.

Marya Dmitrievna Pesto--that was her maiden name--had lost her parents in childhood.

She spent some years in a boarding-school in Moscow, and after leaving school, lived on the family estate of Pokrovskoe, about forty miles from O----, with her aunt and her elder brother.

This brother soon after obtained a post in Petersburg, and made them a scanty allowance.