. 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
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