she would tell Liza how the holy men lived in the deserts, how they worked out their salvation, endured hunger and want,--and, fearing not kings, confessed Christ; how the birds of heaven brought them food, and the wild beasts obeyed them; how on those spots where their blood fell, flowers sprang up.--"Yellow violets?"--one day asked Liza, who was very fond of flowers.... Agafya talked gravely and meekly to Liza, as though she felt that it was not for her to utter such lofty and sacred words. Liza listened to her--and the image of the Omnipresent, Omniscient God penetrated into her soul with a certain sweet power, filled her with pure, devout awe, and Christ became for her a person close to her, almost a relative: and Agafya taught her to pray. Sometimes she woke Liza early, at daybreak, hastily dressed her, and surreptitiously took her to Matins: Liza followed her on tiptoe, hardly breathing; the chill and semi-obscurity of the dawn, the freshness and emptiness of the streets, the very mysteriousness of these unexpected absences, the cautious return to the house, to bed,--all this mingling of the forbidden, the strange, the holy, agitated the little girl, penetrated into the very depths of her being. Agafya never condemned anybody, and did not scold Liza for her pranks. When she was displeased over anything, she simply held her peace; and Liza understood that silence; with the swift perspicacity of a child, she also understood very well when Agafya was displeased with other people--with Marya Dmitrievna herself, or with Kalitin. Agafya took care of Liza for a little more than three years; she was replaced by Mlle. Moreau; but the frivolous Frenchwoman, with her harsh manners and her exclamation: "_tout ca c'est des betises_,"--could not erase from Liza's heart her beloved nurse: the seeds which had been sown had struck down roots too deep. Moreover, Agafya, although she had ceased to have charge of Liza, remained in the house, and often saw her nursling, who confided in her as before.