?"

"Yes," Kitty answered, a pensive smile in her eyes.

"But I really don't know," the mother put in in defense of her
motherly care of her daughter, "what there was in your past that
could worry him? That Vronsky paid you attentions--that happens
to every girl."

"Oh, yes, but we didn't mean that," Kitty said, flushing a
little.

"No, let me speak," her mother went on, "why, you yourself would
not let me have a talk to Vronsky. Don't you remember?"

"Oh, mamma!" said Kitty, with an expression of suffering.

"There's no keeping you young people in check nowadays.... Your
friendship could not have gone beyond what was suitable. I
should myself have called upon him to explain himself. But, my
darling, it's not right for you to be agitated. Please remember
that, and calm yourself."

"I'm perfectly calm, maman."

"How happy it was for Kitty that Anna came then," said Dolly,
"and how unhappy for her. It turned out quite the opposite," she
said, struck by her own ideas. "Then Anna was so happy, and
Kitty thought herself unhappy. Now it is just the opposite. I
often think of her."

"A nice person to think about! Horrid, repulsive woman--no
heart," said her mother, who could not forget that Kitty had
married not Vronsky, but Levin.

"What do you want to talk of it for?" Kitty said with annoyance.
"I never think about it, and I don't want to think of it....
And I don't want to think of it," she said, catching the sound of
her husband's well-known step on the steps of the terrace.

"What's that you don't want to think about?" inquired Levin,
coming onto the terrace.

But no one answered him, and he did not repeat the question.

"I'm sorry I've broken in on your feminine parliament," he said,
looking round on every one discontentedly, and perceiving that
they had been talking of something which they would not talk
about before him.

For a second he felt that he was sharing the feeling of Agafea
Mihalovna, vexation at their making jam without water, and
altogether at the outside Shtcherbatsky element. He smiled,
however, and went up to Kitty.

"Well, how are you?" he asked her, looking at her with the
expression with which everyone looked at her now.

"Oh, very well," said Kitty, smiling, "and how have things gone
with you?"

"The wagons held three times as much as the old carts did. Well,
are we going for the children? I've ordered the horses to be put
in."

"What! you want to take Kitty