Revovka was an entrancing home for a child blessed, as I was, with an imaginative temperament. We had our particular White Lady, a tragic phantom who haunted the Park, and who used to swing in the branches of the lime trees. She had been the mistress of one of my great-uncles, and she was buried in the Park. No one seemed to know her fate, but it was said that she was beautiful and unhappy. Her grave was marked with a flat stone, without any inscription, as the poor little creature had sought refuge from love and life in self-destruction. But Nature was kinder to her than Man, and an enormous bush of wild roses threw out caressing arms towards the cold stones, and showered pink petal-tears on the unhonoured dead. There was a similar forgotten grave on my father’s property, formerly a hunting-box of the Kings of Poland. The occupant of this grave had been the mistress of a king, and, like the beauty of Revovka, she had killed herself; but she was a restless spirit, and she used to haunt the Park and the house in the summer, running swiftly across the greensward, wearing little scarlet slippers and darting up the staircase, her scarlet heels tap-tapping as she went her way, unsubstantial and fantastic as the morning mist. I used to dream all kinds of dreams, but I never anticipated what Destiny held in store for me. I was, by nature, timid; I was to become courageous through force of another’s shining example. I was to see and experience the real meaning of selfless love, and I was to know the comfort and beauty of religion. I do not say that I was irreligious--few Russians are really irreligious--our Belief is too deeply rooted--but I did not yet understand the meaning of the word Faith. I always looked forward to our yearly pilgrimage to the Convent of Tchigrin, twenty-five miles away from Revovka. Custom ordained that we should proceed thither on foot, but the carriage invariably went with us! The convent contained a miraculous Virgin which, when the Turks pillaged Tchigrin, had been taken away by them. One day a disconsolate nun walking on the river’s bank saw something floating on the surface of the water. The Virgin had returned to her convent, and from that time it became the scene of wonderful miracles, and many pilgrimages. I liked Tchigrin; it breathed an atmosphere of calm, standing alone in the midst of dense pine woods. But the wind, which respects neither convents nor humanity, was occasionally unkind to Tchigrin, as it swept away the sand which filled the crevices of the walls, almost like natural mortar, and the nuns daily brought bags of sand wherewith to repair the damage. This sand-carrying was an especial duty connected with Tchigrin, and occasionally it was a penance--but I think those simple creatures rarely deserved punishment.