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 across; and, as he waded through, he scared up a couple of wild ducks.

"There ought to be snipe, also," he thought; and a forest guard whom he met on his way to the house confirmed his supposition.

He immediately spurred up his horse, so as to get back in time for dinner, and to prepare his gun for the evening.

CHAPTER XIV

as Levin reached home, in the best humor in the world, he heard the jingling of bells at the side entrance.

"There, now! some one from the railroad station," was his first thought; "it's time for the Moscow train.—Who can have come? brother Nikolaï? Did he not say that instead of going abroad he might perhaps come to see me?"

For a moment it occurred to him disagreeably that his brother Nikolaï's presence might spoil his pleasant plans for the spring; but, disgusted at the selfishness of this thought, his mind, so to speak, instantly received his brother with open arms, and he began to hope, with affectionate joy, that it was really he.

He hurried his horse, and as he came out from behind the acacia, he saw a hired troïka from the railway station and a traveler dressed in a shuba.

It was not his brother.

"Akh! if only it is some agreeable man to talk with," he thought.

"Ah!" he cried, lifting up both arms as he recognized Stepan Arkadyevitch, "here is the most delectable of guests! Akh! how glad I am to see you!—I shall certainly learn from him if she is married or when she's going to be," he added to himself.

This splendid spring morning he felt that the memory of Kitty was not at all painful.

"You scarcely expected me, I suppose," said Stepan