Varvara Petrovna, who was not easily disconcerted, especially in public, looked at her sternly and with dignity.
I hasten to observe here, as briefly as possible, that though Varvara Petrovna had become, it was said, excessively careful and even stingy, yet sometimes she was not sparing of money, especially for benevolent objects.

She was a member of a charitable society in the capital.

In the last famine year she had sent five hundred roubles to the chief committee for the relief of the sufferers, and people talked of it in the town.

Moreover, just before the appointment of the new governor, she had been on the very point of founding a local committee of ladies to assist the poorest mothers in the town and in the province.

She was severely censured among us for ambition; but Varvara Petrovna's well-known strenuousness and, at the same time, her persistence nearly triumphed over all obstacles.