that her features looked old or faded, but they had somehow lost
their brilliance and looked sterner, her hair seemed shorter, she
looked taller, and her shoulders were quite twice as broad, and
what was most striking, there was already in her face the expression
of motherliness and resignation commonly seen in respectable women
of her age, and this, of course, I had never seen in her before. . . .
In short, of the school-girlish and the Platonic her face had
kept the gentle smile and nothing more. . . .

"We got into conversation. Learning that I was already an engineer,
Kisotchka was immensely delighted.

"'How good that is!' she said, looking joyfully into my face. 'Ah,
how good! And how splendid you all are! Of all who left with you,
not one has been a failure--they have all turned out well. One
an engineer, another a doctor, a third a teacher, another, they
say, is a celebrated singer in Petersburg. . . . You are all splendid,
all of you. . . . Ah, how good that is!'

"Kisotchka's eyes shone with genuine goodwill and gladness. She was
admiring me like an elder sister or a former governess. 'While I
looked at her sweet face and thought, 'It wouldn't be bad to get
hold of her to-day!'

"'Do you remember, Natalya Stepanovna,' I asked her, 'how I once
brought you in the park a bouquet with a note in it? You read my
note, and such a look of bewilderment came into your face. . . .'

"'No, I don't remember that,' she said, laughing. 'But I remember
how you wanted to challenge Florens to a duel over me. . . .'