When she heard of his arrival she almost ran into the drawing room, flushed and beaming with a more than cordial smile.

Boris remembered Natasha in a short dress, with dark eyes shining from under her curls and boisterous, childish laughter, as he had known her four years before; and so he was taken aback when quite a different Natasha entered, and his face expressed rapturous astonishment.

This expression on his face pleased Natasha.

"Well, do you recognize your little madcap playmate?" asked the countess.