`Yes - at walking pace, Princess.'

Levin never called the princess `maman' as men often do call their mothers-in-law, and the Princess disliked his not doing so. But though he liked and respected the Princess, Levin could not call her so without a sense of profaning his feeling for his dead mother.

`Come with us, maman,' said Kitty.

`I don't like to see such imprudence.'

`Well, I'll walk then, I'm so well.' Kitty got up and went to her husband and took his hand.

`You may be well, but everything in moderation,' said the Princess.

`Well, Agathya Mikhailovna, is the jam done?' said Levin, smiling to Agathya Mikhailovna, and trying to cheer her up. `Is it all right in the new way?'

`I suppose it's all right. According to our notions it's boiled too long.'

`It'll be all the better, Agathya Mikhailovna, it won't turn sour, even though the ice in our icehouse has begun to melt already, so that we've no cool place to store it,' said Kitty, at once divining her husband's motive, and addressing the old housekeeper with the same feeling; `but your pickles are so good, that mamma says she never tasted any like them,' she added, smiling, and putting her kerchief straight.

Agathya Mikhailovna looked sulkily at Kitty.

`You needn't try to console me, mistress. I need only to look at you with him, and I feel happy,' she said, and something in the rough familiarity of that with him touched Kitty.

`Come along with us to look for mushrooms, you will show us the best places.'

Agathya Mikhailovna smiled and shook her head, as though to say: `I would even like to be angry with you, but I can't.'

`Do it, please, according to my recipe,' said the Princess; `put some paper over the jam, and moisten it with a little rum, and, even without ice, it will never grow moldy.'