At first Liza was frightened by the serious, even severe, face of her new nurse; but she soon became accustomed to her, and learned to love her warmly.  The child was of a serious disposition herself.  Her features called to mind Kalitine’s regular and finely-moulded face, but her eyes were not like those of her father; they shone with a quiet light, expressive of an earnest goodness that is rarely seen in children.  She did not care about playing with dolls; she never laughed loudly nor long, and a feeling of self-respect always manifested itself in her conduct.  It was not often that she fell into a reverie, but when she did so there was almost always good reason for it; then she would keep silence for a time, but generally ended by addressing to some person older than herself a question which showed that her mind had been working under the influence of a new impression.  She very soon got over her childish lisp, and even before she was four years old she spoke with perfect distinctness.  She was afraid of her father.  As for her mother, she regarded her with a feeling which she could scarcely define, not being afraid of her, but not behaving towards her caressingly.  As for that, she did not caress even her nurse, although she loved her with her whole heart.  She and Agafia were never apart.  It was curious to see them together.  Agafia, all in black, with a dark handkerchief on her head, her face emaciated and of a wax-like transparency, but still beautiful and expressive, would sit erect on her chair, knitting stockings.  At her feet Liza would be sitting on a little stool, also engaged in some work, or, her clear eyes uplifted with a serious expression, listening to what Agafia was telling her.  Agafia never told her nursery tales.  With a calm and even voice, she used to tell her about the life of the Blessed Virgin, or the lives of the hermits and people pleasing to God, or about the holy female martyrs.  She would tell Liza how the saints lived in the deserts; how they worked out their salvation, enduring hunger and thirst; and how they did not fear kings, but confessed Christ; and how the birds of the air brought them food, and the wild beasts obeyed them; how from those spots where their blood had fallen flowers sprang up. ("Were they carnations?” once asked Liza, who was very fond of flowers.) Agafia spoke about these things to Liza seriously and humbly, as if she felt that it was not for her to pronounce such grand and holy words; and as Liza listened to her, the image of the Omnipresent, Omniscient God entered with a sweet influence into her very soul, filling her with a pure and reverend dread, and Christ seemed to her to be close to her, and to be a friend, almost, as it were, a relation.  It was Agafia, also, who taught her to pray.  Sometimes she awoke Liza at the early dawn, dressed her hastily, and secretly conveyed her to matins.  Liza would follow her on tiptoe, scarcely venturing to breathe.  The cold, dim morning light, the raw air pervading the almost empty church, the very secrecy of those unexpected excursions, the cautious return home to bed—­all that combination of the forbidden, the strange, the holy, thrilled the young girl, penetrated to the inmost depths of her being.