a coquettish
smile, and engaged the smiling Julie in a confidential conversation
without at all noticing that his involuntary smile had stabbed the heart
of Sonya, who blushed and smiled unnaturally. In the midst of his talk
he glanced round at her. She gave him a passionately angry glance, and
hardly able to restrain her tears and maintain the artificial smile
on her lips, she got up and left the room. All Nicholas' animation
vanished. He waited for the first pause in the conversation, and then
with a distressed face left the room to find Sonya.

"How plainly all these young people wear their hearts on their
sleeves!" said Anna Mikhaylovna, pointing to Nicholas as he went out.
"Cousinage--dangereux voisinage;" * she added.

* Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood.

"Yes," said the countess when the brightness these young people had
brought into the room had vanished; and as if answering a question no
one had put but which was always in her mind, "and how much suffering,
how much anxiety one has had to go through that we might rejoice in
them now! And yet really the anxiety is greater now than the joy. One is
always, always anxious! Especially just at this age, so dangerous both
for girls and boys."

"It all depends on the bringing up," remarked the visitor.

"Yes, you're quite right," continued the countess. "Till now I have
always, thank God, been my children's friend and had their full
confidence," said she, repeating the mistake of so many parents who
imagine that their children have no secrets from them. "I know I shall
always be my daughters' first confidante, and that if Nicholas, with his
impulsive nature, does get into mischief (a boy can't help it), he will
all the same never be like those Petersburg young men."

"Yes, they are splendid, splendid youngsters," chimed in the count, who
always solved questions that seemed to him perplexing by deciding that
everything was splendid. "Just fancy: wants to be an hussar. What's one
to do, my dear?"

"What a charming creature your younger girl is," said the visitor; "a
little volcano!"

"Yes, a regular volcano," said the count. "Takes after me! And what a
voice she has; though she's my daughter, I tell the truth when I say
she'll be a singer, a second Salomoni! We have engaged an Italian to
give her lessons."

"Isn't she too young? I have heard that it harms the voice to train it
at that age."

"Oh no, not at all too young!" replied the count. "