But Maria Dmitrievna's house did not pass into the hands of strangers, did not go out of her family--the nest was not torn to pieces. Lenochka, who had grown into a pretty and graceful girl; her betrothed, a flaxen locked officer of hussars; Maria Dmitrievna's son, who had only recently married at St. Petersburg, and had now arrived with his young bride to spend the spring in O.; his wife's sister, a sixteen-year-old Institute-girl, with clear eyes and rosy cheeks; and Shurochka, who had also grown up and turned out pretty--these were the young people who made the walls of the Kalitine house resound with laughter and with talk. Every thing was altered in the house, every thing had been made to harmonize with its new inhabitants. Beardless young servant-lads, full of fun and laughter, had replaced the grave old domestics of former days. A couple of setters tore wildly about and jumped upon the couches, in the rooms up and down which Roska, after it had grown fat, used to waddle seriously. In the stable many horses were stalled--clean-limbed canterers, smart trotters for the centre of the _troika_, fiery gallopers with platted manes for the side places, riding horses from the Don. The hours for breakfast, dinner, and supper, were all mixed up and confounded together. In the words of neighbors, "Such a state of things as never had been known before" had taken place. On the evening of which we are about to speak, the inmates of the Kalitine house, of whom the eldest, Lenochka's betrothed, was not more than four-and-twenty, had taken to playing a game which was not of a very complicated nature, but which seemed to be very amusing to them, to judge by their happy laughter,--that of running about the rooms, and trying to catch each other. The dogs, too, ran about and barked; and the canaries which hung up in cages before the windows, straining their throats in rivalry, heightened the general uproar by the piercing accents of their shrill singing. Just as this deafening amusement had reached its climax, a tarantass, all splashed with mud, drew up at the front gate, and a man about forty-five years old, wearing a travelling dress, got out of it and remained standing as if bewildered. For some time he stood at the gate without moving, but gazing at the house with observant eyes; then he entered the court-yard by the wicket-gate, and slowly mounted the steps. He encountered no one in the vestibule; but suddenly the drawing-room door was flung open, and Shurochka, all rosy red, came running out of the room; and directly afterwards, with shrill cries, the whole of the youthful band rushed after her. Suddenly, at the sight of an unknown stranger, they stopped short, and became silent; but the bright eyes which were fixed on him still retained their friendly expression, the fresh young faces did not cease to smile. Then Maria Dmitrievna's son approached the visitor, and politely asked what he could do for him. "I am Lavretsky," said the stranger.