"Oh! barin, it is a sin of you to say so. Our young lady is so fair, so elegant! How can I vie with her?"
Alexis vowed that she was prettier than all imaginable fair young ladies, and to appease her thoroughly, began describing her young lady so funnily that Lisa burst into a hearty laugh.
"Still," she said, with a sigh, "though she may be ridiculous, yet by her side I am an illiterate fool."
"Well, that is a thing to worry yourself about. If you like I will teach you to read at once."
"Are you in earnest, shall I really try?"
"If you like, my darling, we will begin at once."
They sat down. Alexis produced a pencil and note-book, and Akulina proved astonishingly quick in learning the alphabet. Alexis wondered at her intelligence. At their next meeting she wished to learn to write. The pencil at first would not obey her, but in a few minutes she could trace the letters pretty well.
"How wonderfully we get on, faster than by the Lancaster method."
Indeed, at the third lesson Akulina could read words of even three syllables, and the intelligent remarks with which she interrupted the lessons fairly astonished Alexis. As for writing she covered a whole page with aphorisms, taken from the story she had been reading. A week passed and they had begun a correspondence. Their post-office was the trunk of an old oak, and Nastia secretly played the part of postman. Thither Alexis would bring his letters, written in a large round hand, and there he found the letters of his beloved scrawled on coarse blue paper. Akulina's style was evidently improving, and her mind clearly was developing under cultivation.