"Call her Liza, my dear. Why should she be Mikhailovna for you? But do sit still, or you will break Shurochka's chair."
"She was on her way to church," continued Lavretsky. "Is she seriously inclined?"
"Yes, Fedia, very much so. More than you or I, Fedia."
"And do you mean to say you are not seriously inclined?" lisped Nastasia Carpovna. "If you have not gone to the early mass to-day, you will go to the later one."
"Not a bit of it. Thou shalt go alone. I've grown lazy, my mother," answered Marfa Timofeevna. "I am spoiling myself terribly with tea drinking."
She said thou to Nastasia Carpovna, although she lived on a footing
of equality with her—but it was not for nothing that she was a
Pestof. Three Pestofs occur in the Sinodik[A] of Ivan the Terrible.
Marfa Timofeevna was perfectly well aware of the fact.
[Footnote A: "I.e., in the list of the nobles of his time, in the sixteenth century.]
"Tell me, please," Lavretsky began again. "Maria Dmitrievna was talking to me just now about that—what's his name?—Panshine. What sort of a man is he?"
"Good Lord! what a chatter-box she is!" grumbled Marfa Timofeevna. "I've no doubt she has communicated to you as a secret that he hangs about here as a suitor. She might have been contented to 'Whisper about it with her popovich[A] But no, it seems that is not enough for her. And yet there is nothing settled so far, thank God! but she's always chattering."
[Footnote A: The priest's son. i.e., Gedeonovsky.]