drives up with
harness bells; she hears him coming! He comes in, just in the shape of a
man, like an officer--comes in and sits down to table with her."

"Ah! ah!" screamed Natasha, rolling her eyes with horror.

"Yes? And how... did he speak?"

"Yes, like a man. Everything quite all right, and he began persuading
her; and she should have kept him talking till cockcrow, but she got
frightened, just got frightened and hid her face in her hands. Then he
caught her up. It was lucky the maids ran in just then..."

"Now, why frighten them?" said Pelageya Danilovna.

"Mamma, you used to try your fate yourself..." said her daughter.

"And how does one do it in a barn?" inquired Sonya.

"Well, say you went to the barn now, and listened. It depends on what
you hear; hammering and knocking--that's bad; but a sound of shifting
grain is good and one sometimes hears that, too."

"Mamma, tell us what happened to you in the barn."

Pelageya Danilovna smiled.

"Oh, I've forgotten..." she replied. "But none of you would go?"

"Yes, I will; Pelageya Danilovna, let me! I'll go," said Sonya.

"Well, why not, if you're not afraid?"

"Louisa Ivanovna, may I?" asked Sonya.

Whether they were playing the ring and string game or the ruble game or
talking as now, Nicholas did not leave Sonya's side, and gazed at her
with quite new eyes. It seemed to him that it was only today, thanks
to that burnt-cork mustache, that he had fully learned to know her. And
really, that evening, Sonya was brighter, more animated, and prettier
than Nicholas had ever seen her before.

"So that's what she is like; what a fool I have been!" he thought gazing
at her sparkling eyes, and under the mustache a happy rapturous smile
dimpled her cheeks, a smile he had never seen before.

"I'm not afraid of anything," said Sonya. "May I go at once?" She got
up.

They told her where the barn was and how she should stand and listen,
and they handed her a fur cloak. She threw this over her head and
shoulders and glanced at Nicholas.

"What a darling that girl is!" thought he. "And what have I been
thinking of till now?"

Sonya went out into the passage to go to the barn. Nicholas went hastily
to the front porch, saying he felt too hot. The crowd of people really
had made the house stuffy.

Outside, there was the same cold stillness and the same moon, but even
brighter than before. The light was so strong and the snow sparkled with
so many stars that one