and beg my kinsman's protection, when suddenly my uncle started and opened his arms with a look of intense surprise.
“Lord in heaven, what is that?” he asked.
Down the path came Tatiana Ivanovna, wife of Feodor Petrovitch, our steward. She was carrying a white, well-starched petticoat, and a long ironing board. When passing she looked timidly at the guest through her long eyelashes, and blushed.
“Still more miracles!” cried my uncle, through his teeth, looking genially after her. “One can't walk a yard with you, sister, without a fresh surprise. . . . I swear to God!”
“That is our local beauty,” said my mother. “She was courted for Feodor in town, a hundred versts from this.”
Few would have found Tatiana Ivanovna beautiful. She was a little plump woman of about twenty, black-browed, and always rosy and pleasing. But neither face nor figure contained one striking trait, one bold stroke to catch the eye; it seemed as if Nature, creating her, had lost inspiration and confidence. Tatiana Ivanovna was timid, confused, and well-mannered; she walked quietly and smoothly, spoke little, and seldom smiled; her whole life was as flat and eventless as her face and her smoothly dressed hair. My uncle looked after her and smiled; and my mother looked earnestly at her smiling face, and became serious.
