Page:Pushkin - Russian Romance (King, 1875).djvu/190

"What a wonder!" Aleksèy would say; "why, we learn more quickly than if we had followed Lancaster's system." And in truth, at her third lesson, Lisa was able to spell "Natalia, the Boyar's daughter," intermixing with her reading remarks which truly surprised Aleksèy, and she filled a sheet of paper with extracts from the same story.

A week elapsed, and they began to correspond. A hollow in an old oak served as their post-office. Nastia was fulfilling the duties of postman on the sly. Aleksèy used to deposit his half-text epistles, and find the hieroglyphics of his beloved one written on common blue paper. Akulina was rapidly acquiring a more elegant mode of expressing herself, and her mind was evidently being developed and instructed.

The reconciliation between Ivan Petróvitch Beréstoff and Grigory Ivánovitch Múromsky had in the meantime progressed to intimacy, and at last ripened into friendship under the following circumstances: Múromsky often mused on the fact that all Ivan Petr6vitch's property would at his death pass on to Aleksèy Ivánovitch, that Aleksèy Ivánovitch would thus become one of the richest landowners in the province, and such being the case there could be no reason why he should not marry Lisa. The old Beréstoff, on his part, although aware of his neighbour's peculiarities (or, as he termed them, English follies), did not for all that ignore his many good qualities. For instance: his rare abilities; Grigory Ivánovitch was nearly related to Count Pronsky, a well-known and influential man; the count might be of service to Aleksèy; and Múromsky (so thought Ivan Petróvitch) would surely