Anna Evauovna, peering through the leaves, could see it all. Alioscha, as eager in his welcome to the wanderer as Grusha herself, was now dancing merrily also, and Masha was his happy partner. Her kerchief had fallen back, leaving her good-natured, round face unframed, and exposing the line of white forehead which had been protected from the sun. She was a pretty picture. The dance grew wilder, the voices louder, the stamping and clapping more vehement. The musician on the table shouted more lustily as he danced himself, now on one foot, now on the other, all over the table-top. Anna Evauovna looked at Grusha’s excited face flushed with her exertion, and then at her rival suitors, both of the same height, both well built, and both with the same heavy square face and mass of thick hair. That Ivan was fair, and Alioscha dark, seemed the only difference. The old woman turned away with a wicked chuckle. “There is not a pin to choose between them,” she said to herself, “Grusha must draw lots.” When, a little later, Masha came into the housekeeper’s room, breathless and over-running with her news, Anna Evauovna could be told nothing. She knew when Ivan had arrived, from where, by what roads, and, in fact, everything. The only thing she did not know, or as Masha believed, would not tell, was how Grusha would choose. On her way home, Masha came across Grusha sweeping the leaves from a path in the garden. She was alone, and Masha could not help questioning her. “Grusha, Ivan has come back, what are you going to do now?” Grusha leaned on her broom and looked at Masha’s earnest face. She laughed aloud, but good-naturedly still. “I am going to sweep this path when you stand off it,” she said, and Masha could get no further satisfaction. But the next day, Anna Evauovna was able, or willing, to relieve Masha’s anxiety. “She takes Ivan, and they are to be married in a week. Both get what they want and have waited long for. Now we shall see what we shall see,” said Anna Evauovna grimly. Ten days later, as Anna Evauovna walked through the village, she stopped at the door of the isba belonging to Ivan’s parents. There in the doorway sat Grusha, the bride, peeling potatoes for the evening meal, as unmoved and uninterested as if she had been peeling potatoes in Ivan’s doorway for years. She had gone from one isba to another: She had peeled her father’s potatoes, and now peeled Ivan’s—that was all. “Good luck to you, Grusha,” said Anna Evauovna. “But I suppose you think you have luck by the forelock, as Ivan was faithful to you in all that time.” “Yes,” answered Grusha indifferently, splashing a potato in the bowl of water. “You have all you waited for—if I may say so and bring no ill-luck.” “I have everything,” Grusha replied without enthusiasm. Anna Evauovna looked at the girl’s stolid face, and laughed aloud.