times she had liked to dress well so as to render herself handsome and attractive; but as she became older, she lost her taste for adornment; she saw how her beauty had faded. But now she once more found satisfaction and a certain emotion in being attractively arrayed. She did not now dress for her own sake, or to enhance her beauty, but so that, as mother of these lovely children, she might not spoil the general impression. And as she cast a final glance at the mirror, she was satisfied with herself. She was beautiful,—not beautiful in the same way as at one time she liked to be at a ball, but beautiful for the purpose which she had now in mind.
There was no one at church except the muzhiks and the household servants; but Darya Aleksandrovna noticed, or thought she noticed, the attention that she and her children attracted as they went along. The children were handsome in their nicely trimmed dresses, and still more charming in their behavior. Alosha, to be sure, was not absolutely satisfactory; he kept turning round, and trying to look at the tails of his little coat, but nevertheless he was wonderfully pretty. Tania behaved like a grown-up lady, and looked after the younger ones. But Lili, the smallest, was fascinating in her naïve wonder at everything that she saw; and it was hard not to smile when, after she had received the communion, she cried out in English, "Please, some more!"
After they got home, the children felt the consciousness that something solemn had taken place, and were very quiet.
All went well in the house, till at lunch Grisha began to whistle, and, what was worse than all, refused to obey the English governess; and he was sent away without any tart. Darya Aleksandrovna would not have allowed any punishment on such a day if she had been there; but she was obliged to uphold the governess, and confirm her in depriving Grisha of the tart. This was a cloud on the general happiness.
Grisha began to cry, saying that Nikolinka also had whistled but they did not punish him, and that he was
