The most generous and legitimate indignation was glowing in her soul, when, as she put on her shawl, she caught fixed upon her the embarrassed and mistrustful eyes of her protegee.

She had genuinely loved the girl from her childhood upwards.

Praskovya Ivanovna had with justice called Darya Pavlovna her favourite.

Long ago Varvara Petrovna had made up her mind once for all that "Darya's disposition was not like her brother's" (not, that is, like Ivan Shatov's), that she was quiet and gentle, and capable of great self-sacrifice; that she was distinguished by a power of devotion, unusual modesty, rare reasonableness, and, above all, by gratitude.

Till that time Dasha had, to all appearances, completely justified her expectations.
"In that life there will be no mistakes," said Varvara Petrovna when the girl was only twelve years old, and as it was characteristic of her to attach herself doggedly and passionately to any dream that fascinated her, any new design, any idea that struck her as noble, she made up her mind at once to educate Dasha as though she were her own daughter.