borzois, and Agafya Mikhailovna loved him
for that.

Styopa's examination was in the spring.
Agafya Mikhailovna knew about it and anxiously
waited for the news of whether he had got through.

Once she put up a candle before the eikon and prayed that
Styopa might pass. But at that moment she remembered that
her borzois had got out and had not come back to the
kennels again.

"Saints in heaven! they'll get into some place and worry the
cattle and do a mischief!" she cried. "'Lord, let my candle burn
for the dogs to come back quick, and I'll buy another for Stepan
Andreyevitch.' No sooner had I said this to myself than I
heard the dogs in the porch rattling their collars. Thank God!
they were back. That's what prayer can do."

Another favorite of Agafya Mikhailovna was a
young man, Misha Stakhovitch, who often stayed with
us.

"See what you have been and done to me, little Countess!"
she said reproachfully to my sister Tanya: "you've
introduced me to Mikhail Alexandrovitch, and I've fallen in love
with him in my old age, like a wicked woman!"

On the fifth of February, her name-day, Agafya
Mikhailovna received a telegram of congratulation from