instant have weighed the life of a serf against either of those
interesting animals.

Like all the women of distinction in her nation, Vaninka was a good
musician, and spoke French, Italian, German, and English 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