loda and Katenka a relation which differentiated them from us, and
united them mysteriously to one another.

XXI. KATENKA AND LUBOTSHKA

Katenka was now sixteen years old--quite a grown-up girl; and although
at that age the angular figures, the bashfulness, and the gaucherie
peculiar to girls passing from childhood to youth usually replace the
comely freshness and graceful, half-developed bloom of childhood, she
had in no way altered. Still the blue eyes with their merry glance were
hers, the well-shaped nose with firm nostrils and almost forming a line
with the forehead, the little mouth with its charming smile, the dimples
in the rosy cheeks, and the small white hands. To her, the epithet of
"girl," pure and simple, was pre-eminently applicable, for in her the
only new features were a new and "young-lady-like" arrangement of her
thick flaxen hair and a youthful bosom--the latter an addition which at
once caused her great joy and made her very bashful.

Although Lubotshka and she had grown up together and received the same
education, they were totally unlike one another. Lubotshka was not tall,
and the rickets from which she had suffered had shaped her feet in goose
fashion and made her figure very bad. The only pretty feature in her
face was her eyes, which were indeed wonderful, being large and black,
and instinct with such an extremely pleasing expression of mingled
gravity and naivete that she was bound to attract attention. In
everything she was simple and natural, so that, whereas Katenka always
looked as though she were trying to be like some one else, Lubotshka
looked people straight in the face, and sometimes fixed them so long
with her splendid black eyes that she got blamed for doing what was
thought to be improper. Katenka, on the contrary, always cast her
eyelids down, blinked, and pretended that she was short-sighted, though
I knew very well that her sight was excellent. Lubotshka hated being
shown off before strangers, and when a visitor offered to kiss her she
invariably grew cross, and said that she hated "affection"; whereas,
when strangers were present, Katenka was always particularly endearing
to Mimi, and loved to walk about the room arm in arm with another girl.
Likewise, though Lubotshka was a terrible giggler, and sometimes ran
about the room in convulsions of gesticulating laughter, Katenka always
covered her mouth with her hands or her pocket-handkerchief when she
wanted to laugh. Lubo