s
forehead. 'We ought to have done it before.... How are you, fatty?' he
said, suddenly brightening, and going up to the baby, he kissed him on
the cheek; then he bent a little and pressed his lips to Fenitchka's
hand, which lay white as milk upon Mitya's little red smock.

'Nikolai Petrovitch! what are you doing?' she whispered, dropping her
eyes, then slowly raising them. Very charming was the expression of her
eyes when she peeped, as it were, from under her lids, and smiled
tenderly and a little foolishly.

Nikolai Petrovitch had made Fenitchka's acquaintance in the following
manner. He had once happened three years before to stay a night at an
inn in a remote district town. He was agreeably struck by the cleanness
of the room assigned to him, the freshness of the bed-linen. Surely the
woman of the house must be a German? was the idea that occurred to him;
but she proved to be a Russian, a woman of about fifty, neatly dressed,
of a good-looking, sensible countenance and discreet speech. He entered
into conversation with her at tea; he liked her very much. Nikolai
Petrovitch had at that time only just moved into his new home, and not
wishing to keep serfs in the house, he was on the look-out for
wage-servants; the woman of the inn on her side complained of the small
number of visitors to the town, and the hard times; he proposed to her
to come into his house in the capacity of housekeeper; she consented.
Her husband had long been dead, leaving her an only daughter,
Fenitchka. Within a fortnight Arina Savishna (that was the new
housekeeper's name) arrived with her daughter at Maryino and installed
herself in the little lodge. Nikolai Petrovitch's choice proved a
successful one. Arina brought order into the household. As for
Fenitchka, who was at that time seventeen, no one spoke of her, and
scarcely any one saw her; she lived quietly and sedately, and only on
Sundays Nikolai Petrovitch noticed in the church somewhere in a side
place the delicate profile of her white face. More than a year passed
thus.

One morning, Arina came into his study, and bowing low as usual, she
asked him if he could do anything for her daughter, who had got a spark
from the stove in her eye. Nikolai Petrovitch, like all stay-at-home
people, had studied doctoring and even compiled a homoeopathic guide.
He at once told Arina to bring the patient to him. Fenitchka was much
frightened when she heard the master had sent for her; however, she
f