Alexey Alexandrovitch was busily engaged with them for a long while, drew up a program for them from which they were not to depart, and on dismissing them wrote a letter to Petersburg for the guidance of the deputation.

He had his chief support in this affair in the Countess Lidia Ivanovna.

She was a specialist in the matter of deputations, and no one knew better than she how to manage them, and put them in the way they should go.

Having completed this task, Alexey Alexandrovitch wrote the letter to the lawyer.