Often the best results are obtained accidentally, and the more one tries the worse things turn out. In the country, people rarely try to educate their children, and therefore, unwittingly, usually give them an excellent education. This was particularly so in Lisa’s case. Anna Fyódorovna, with her limited intellect and careless temperament, gave Lisa no education⁠—did not teach her music or that very useful French language⁠—but having accidentally borne a healthy, pretty child by her deceased husband, she gave her little daughter over to a wet-nurse and a dry-nurse, fed her, dressed her in cotton prints and goatskin shoes, sent her out to walk and to gather mushrooms and wild berries, engaged a pupil of the seminary to teach her reading, writing, and arithmetic, and when sixteen years had passed, she accidentally found in Lisa a friend, an ever-cheerful and kindhearted being, and an active housekeeper. Anna Fyódorovna, being kindhearted, always had some children to bring up: either serf children or foundlings. Lisa began looking after them when she was ten years old: teaching them, dressing them, taking them to church, and checking them when they played too many pranks. Later on, the decrepit, kindly uncle, who had to be tended like a child, appeared on the scene.