"No, I'm going, Dolly, you sit still," he said. "We'll do it all

properly, like the book. Only when Stiva comes, and we go out

shooting, then we shall have to miss it."

And Levin went to Grisha.

Varenka was saying the same thing to Kitty. Even in the happy,

well-ordered household of the Levins Varenka had succeeded in

making herself useful.

"I'll see to the supper, you sit still," she said, and got up to

go to Agafea Mihalovna.

"Yes, yes, most likely they've not been able to get chickens. If

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so, ours..."

"Agafea Mihalovna and I will see about it," and Varenka vanished

with her.

"What a nice girl!" said the princess.

"Not nice, maman; she's an exquisite girl; there's no one else

like her."

"So you are expecting Stepan Arkadyevitch today?" said Sergey

Ivanovitch, evidently not disposed to pursue the conversation

about Varenka. "It would be difficult to find two sons-in-law

more unlike than yours," he said with a subtle smile. "One all

movement, only living in society, like a fish in water; the other

our Kostya, lively, alert, quick in everything, but as soon as he

is in society, he either sinks into apathy, or struggles

helplessly like a fish on land."

"Yes, he's very heedless," said the princess, addressing Sergey

Ivanovitch. "I've been meaning, indeed, to ask you to tell him

that it's out of the question for her" (she indicated Kitty) "to

stay here; that she positively must come to Moscow. He talks of

getting a doctor down..."

"Maman, he'll do everything; he has agreed to everything," Kitty

said, angry with her mother for appealing to Sergey Ivanovitch to

judge in such a matter.

In the middle of their conversation they heard the snorting of

horses and the sound of wheels on the gravel. Dolly had not time

to get up to go and meet her husband, when from the window of the

room below, where Grisha was having his lesson, Levin leaped out

and helped Grisha out after him.

"It's Stiva!" Levin shouted from under the balcony. "We've

finished, Dolly, don't be afraid!" he added, and started running

like a boy to meet the carriage.

"_Is ea id, ejus, ejus, ejus!_" shouted Grisha, skipping along

the avenue.

"And some one else too! Papa, of course!" cried Levin, stopping

at the entrance of the avenue. "Kitty, don't come down the steep

staircase, go round."

But Levin had been mistaken in taking the person sitting in the

carriage for the old prince. As he got nearer to the carriage he

saw beside Stepan Arkadyevitch not the prince but a handsome,

stout young man in a Scotch cap, with long ends of ribbon behind.

This was Vassenka Veslovsky, a distant cousin of the

Shtcherbatskys, a brilliant young gentleman in Petersburg and

Moscow society. "A capital fellow, and a keen sportsman," as

Stepan Arkadyevitch said, introducing him.




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