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 that, in spite of her will, it expressed itself now in the lightning of her eyes, now in her smile. She demurely veiled the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will in her scarcely perceptible smile.

Vronsky went into the carriage. His mother, a dried-up old lady with black eyes and little curls, screwed up her face as she looked at him with a slight smile on her thin lips. Getting up from her chair, and handing her bag to her maid, she extended her little thin hand to her son, and, pushing his head from her, kissed him on the brow.

"You received my telegram? You are well? Thank the Lord!"

"Did you have a comfortable journey?" said the son, sitting down near her, and yet involuntarily listening to a woman's voice just outside the door. He knew that it was the voice of the lady whom he had met.

"However, I don't agree with you," said the lady's voice.

"It is the Petersburg way of looking at it, madam."

"Not at all, but simply a woman's," was her reply.

"Well! allow me to kiss your hand."

"Good-by, Ivan Petrovitch. Now look and see if my brother is here, and send him to me," said the lady, at the very door, and reëntering the compartment.

"Have you found your brother?" asked the Countess Vronskaya, addressing the lady.

Vronsky now knew that it was Karenin's wife.

"Your brother is here," he said, rising. "Excuse me; I did not recognize you; but our acquaintance was so short," he added with a bow, "that you naturally did not remember me either."

"Oh, yes, I did!" she said. "I should have known you because your matushka and I have been talking about you all the way." And at last she permitted the animation which had been striving to break forth to express itself in a smile. "But my brother has not come yet."

"Go and call him, Alyosha," said the old countess.

Vronsky went out on the platform and called:—

"Oblonsky! here!"