This Russian girl was not, as Kitty gathered, related to Madame Stahl, nor was she a paid attendant.

Madame Stahl called her Varenka, and other people called her "Mademoiselle Varenka.

" Apart from the interest Kitty took in this girl's relations with Madame Stahl and with other unknown persons, Kitty, as often happened, felt an inexplicable attraction to Mademoiselle Varenka, and was aware when their eyes met that she too liked her.

Of Mademoiselle Varenka one would not say that she had passed her first youth, but she was, as it were, a creature without youth; she might have been taken for nineteen or for thirty.