She returned in July, alone, leaving Dasha with the Drozdovs.

She brought us the news that the Drozdovs themselves had promised to arrive among us by the end of August.
The Drozdovs, too, were landowners of our province, but the official duties of General Ivan Ivanovitch Drozdov (who had been a friend of Varvara Petrovna's and a colleague of her husband's) had always prevented them from visiting their magnificent estate.

On the death of the general, which had taken place the year before, the inconsolable widow had gone abroad with her daughter, partly in order to try the grape-cure which she proposed to carry out at Verney-Montreux during the latter half of the summer.

On their return to Russia they intended to settle in our province for good.

She had a large house in the town which had stood empty for many years with the windows nailed up.