nglish equally well.

Her features had developed in harmony with her character. Vaninka was
beautiful, but her beauty was perhaps a little too decided. Her large
black eyes, straight nose, and lips curling scornfully at the corners,
impressed those who saw her for the first time somewhat unpleasantly.
This impression soon wore off with her superiors and equals, to whom she
became merely an ordinary charming woman, whilst to subalterns and such
like she remained haughty and inaccessible as a goddess. At seventeen
Vaninka's education was finished, and her governess who had suffered
in health through the severe climate of St. Petersburg, requested
permission to leave. This desire was granted with the ostentatious
recognition of which the Russian nobility are the last representatives
in Europe. Thus Vaninka was left alone, with nothing but her father's
blind adoration to direct her. She was his only daughter, as we have
mentioned, and he thought her absolutely perfect.

Things were in this state in the-general's house when he received a
letter, written on the deathbed of one of the friends of his youth.
Count Romayloff had been exiled to his estates, as a result of some
quarrel with Potemkin, and his career had been spoilt. Not being able to
recover his forfeited position, he had settled down about four hundred
leagues from St. Petersburg; broken-hearted, distressed probably less
on account of his own exile and misfortune than of the prospects of his
only son, Foedor. The count feeling that he was leaving this son alone
and friendless in the world, commended the young man, in the name of
their early friendship, to the general, hoping that, owing to his being
a favourite with Paul I, he would be able to procure a lieutenancy in a
regiment for him. The general immediately replied to the count that his
son should find a second father in himself; but when this comforting
message arrived, Romayloff was no more, and Foedor himself received the
letter and carried it back with him to the general, when he went to tell
him of his loss and to claim the promised protection. So great was the
general's despatch, that Paul I, at his request, granted the young man
a sub-lieutenancy in the Semonowskoi regiment, so that Foedor entered on
his duties the very next day after his arrival in St. Petersburg.

Although the young man had only passed through the general's house on
his way to the barracks, which were situated in the Litenoi quarter,