could affect him. But he had never dreamed of what Stepan Arkadyevitch replied.

“She’s never thought of being married, and isn’t thinking of it; but she’s very ill, and the doctors have sent her abroad. They’re positively afraid she may not live.”

“What!” cried Levin. “Very ill? What is wrong with her? How has she...?”

While they were saying this, Laska, with ears pricked up, was looking upwards at the sky, and reproachfully at them.

“They have chosen a time to talk,” she was thinking. “It’s on the wing.... Here it is, yes, it is. They’ll miss it,” thought Laska.

But at that very instant