"No, nothing," said Dasha, after a moment's thought, and she glanced at Varvara Petrovna with her light-coloured eyes. "Nothing on your soul, on your heart, or your conscience?" "Nothing," Dasha repeated, quietly, but with a sort of sullen firmness. "I knew there wasn't! Believe me, Darya, I shall never doubt you. Now sit still and listen. In front of me, on that chair. I want to see the whole of you. That's right. Listen, do you want to be married?" Dasha responded with a long, inquiring, but not greatly astonished look. "Stay, hold your tongue. In the first place there is a very great difference in age, but of course you know better than anyone what nonsense that is. You're a sensible girl, and there must be no mistakes in your life. Besides, he's still a handsome man... In short, Stepan Trofimovitch, for whom you have always had such a respect. Well?" Dasha looked at her still more inquiringly, and this time not simply with surprise; she blushed perceptibly. "Stay, hold your tongue, don't be in a hurry! Though you will have money under my will, yet when I die, what will become of you, even if you have money? You'll be deceived and robbed of your money, you'll be lost in fact. But married to him you're the wife of a distinguished man. Look at him on the other hand. Though I've provided for him, if I die what will become of him? But I could trust him to you. Stay, I've not finished. He's frivolous, shilly-shally, cruel, egoistic, he has low habits. But mind you think highly of him, in the first place because there are many worse. I don't want to get you off my hands by marrying you to a rascal, you don't imagine anything of that sort, do you? And, above all, because I ask you, you'll think highly of him,"-- She broke off suddenly and irritably. "Do you hear? Why won't you say something?" Dasha still listened and did not speak. "Stay, wait a little. He's an old woman, but you know, that's all the better for you. Besides, he's a pathetic old woman. He doesn't deserve to be loved by a woman at all, but he deserves to be loved for his helplessness, and you must love him for his helplessness. You understand me, don't you? Do you understand me?" Dasha nodded her head affirmatively.