ect: it is not soon given, nor to every one. For Agafya
every one in the home had great respect; no one even remembered her
previous sins, as though they had been buried with the old master.

When Kalitin became Marya Dmitrievna's husband, he wanted to intrust the
care of the house to Agafya. But she refused "on account of temptation;"
he scolded her, but she bowed humbly and left the room. Kalitin was
clever in understanding men; he understood Agafya and did not forget
her. When he moved to the town, he gave her, with her consent, the place
of nurse to Lisa, who was only just five years old.

Lisa was at first frightened by the austere and serious face of her
new nurse; but she soon grew used to her and began to love her. She was
herself a serious child. Her features recalled Kalitin's decided and
regular profile, only her eyes were not her father's; they were lighted
up by a gentle attentiveness and goodness, rare in children. She did not
care to play with dolls, never laughed loudly or for long, and behaved
with great decorum. She was not often thoughtful, but when she was, it
was almost always with some reason. After a short silence, she usually
turned to some grown-up person with a question which showed that her
brain had been at work upon some new impression. She very early got
over childish lispings, and by the time she was four years old spoke
perfectly plainly. She was afraid of her father; her feeling towards
her mother was undefinable, she was not afraid of her, nor was she
demonstrative to her; but she was not demonstrative even towards Agafya,
though she was the only person she loved. Agafya never left her. It
was curious to see them together. Agafya, all in black, with a dark
handkerchief on her head, her face thin and transparent as wax, but
still beautiful and expressive, would be sitting upright, knitting a
stocking; Lisa would sit at her feet in a little arm-chair, also busied
over some kind of work, and seriously raising her clear eyes, listening
to what Agafya was relating to her. And Agafya did not tell her stories;
but in even measured accents she would narrate the life of the Holy
Virgin, the lives of hermits, saints, and holy men. She would tell
Lisa how the holy men lived in deserts, how they were saved, how they
suffered hunger and want, and did not fear kings, but confessed Christ;
how fowls of the air brought them food and wild beasts listened to them,
and flowers sprang up on the spots where