Saying this, she placed a cushion, embroidered in wool behind her friend's back; it represented a troubadour with a guitar slung around his neck, such as are usually embroidered upon canvass: his nose resembled a ladder, and as for his lips, they were regular squares.
"How very glad I am indeed to see that it is you. I heard a carriage stopping before the door, but could not for a moment imagine whoever could come so very early; my chambermaid thought it was the wife of our Vice-Governor, and I said immediately: how provoking, she is such an insipid woman; and I was on the point of giving orders to say that I was not at home."
Her guest was just on the point of plunging at once _in medias res_, and communicating to her friend the important news she had brought; but the sudden exclamation of the in every respect amiable lady, gave at once another direction to their conversation.
"What a gay-coloured muslin!" exclaimed the in every respect amiable lady, as she cast a glance upon the dress of the simply amiable lady.
"Yes, a very lively-coloured one indeed. My cousin, Praskovia Fedorovna, however, thinks, that it would have been prettier, if the checks in it were smaller, and the little dots in them blue instead of brown. By the bye, I sent the other day, a dress for my sister, which was really so very charming, that it is quite impossible to describe it in words; imagine only, my dear, small stripes, as small as human imagination can possibly fancy them, on a blue ground, and across these stripes, little eyes and paws--eyes and paws--eyes and paws. In a word, charming! incomparable! I may really say that anything similar has not yet been seen before."
"Oh, no, my angel, it is far from being showy."
We must observe here, that the in every respect amiable lady, was in many other respects also a great materialist, inclined to contradictions and doubts, and fond of questioning a great many other things in this world.
As for the simply amiable lady, she simply explained to her friend, that the dress she had sent to her sister, was far from being showy at all, and continued: "by the bye, allow me to compliment you on a change in fashion; _volants_ are to be worn no longer!"
"Good gracious! what do you say, out of fashion?"