“God grant that you may follow her example,” said Tatiana Markovna.
“If you love me as I love you, Grandmother, you will bestow all your care and thought on Marfinka. Take no thought for me.”
“My heart aches for you, Veroshka.”
“I know, and that grieves me. Grandmother,” she said with a despairing note, “it is killing me to think that your heart aches on my account.”
“What do you say, Veroshka? open your heart to me. Perhaps I can comprehend, and if you have grief, help to assuage it.”
“If trouble overtakes me, Grandmother, and I cannot conquer it myself, I will come to you and to none other, God only excepted. But do not make me suffer any more, or allow yourself to suffer.”
“Will it not be too late when trouble has once overtaken you?” whispered her aunt. Then she added aloud, “I know that you are not like Marfinka, and I will not disturb you.”
A long sigh escaped her as she left the room with quick steps and bent head. Vera’s distress was the only cloud on her horizon, and she prayed earnestly that it might pass and not gather into a black storm cloud. Vera sought to calm her own agitation by walking up and down the garden, but only succeeded gradually. As soon as she caught sight of Marfinka and Vikentev in the arbour, she hurried to them, looked affectionately into her sister’s face, kissed her eyes, her lips, her cheeks, and embraced her warmly.
“You must be happy,” she said with tears in her eyes.
“How lovely you are Veroshka, and how good! We are not a bit like sisters. There is nobody in the neighbourhood fit to marry you, is there, Nikolai Andreevich?”