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"No? She is very nice and kind and, above all, she's much to be

pitied. She has no one, no one. To tell the truth, I don't need

her, and she's even in my way. You know I always was a savage,

and now am even more so. I like being alone.... Father likes her

very much. She and Michael Ivanovich are the two people to whom

he is always gentle and kind, because he has been a benefactor to

them both. As Sterne says: 'We don't love people so much for the

good they have done us, as for the good we have done them.'

Father took her when she was homeless after losing her own

father. She is very good-natured, and my father likes her way of

reading. She reads to him in the evenings and reads splendidly."

"To be quite frank, Mary, I expect Father's character sometimes

makes things trying for you, doesn't it?" Prince Andrew asked

suddenly.

Princess Mary was first surprised and then aghast at this

question.

"For me? For me?... Trying for me!..." said she.