Читать книгу The Secret Dispatch; or, The Adventures of Captain Balgonie онлайн

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"Yet we must thank your Podatchkine, in so far that he has procured us the pleasure of your society in this lonely place—my daughter and my niece, Captain Ivanovitch Balgonie," continued the Count, introducing two young ladies who came through the curtains of a species of boudoir, "Natalie and Mariolizza Usakoff. Our visitor, Natalie, is that Ivanovitch Balgonie of whom Basil has spoken so much and so kindly."

Without being a vain man, Balgonie felt at that moment considerable satisfaction in the conviction that he was—as his glass had often informed him—decidedly a good-looking young fellow, with regular features, fine dark eyes, curling brown hair, and a smart moustache; for Natalie Mierowna, like her cousin Mariolizza, was one of the most attractive women at the dangerous Court of the Empress Catharine II.; for it was during her reign that the story and the atrocities we have unfortunately to record took place; when among us, in more civilised Britain, the grandfather of her present Majesty, old George III., was king, and the arts of peace and war grew side by side.