"I imagine it won't be possible to avoid going. Here, take it,"
she said to Tanya, who was pulling the loosely-fitting ring off
her white, slender-tipped finger.

"I shall be so glad if you go. I should so like to see you at a
ball."

"Anyway, if I do go, I shall comfort myself with the thought that
it's a pleasure to you...Grisha, don't pull my hair. It's untidy
enough without that," she said, putting up a straying lock, which
Grisha had been playing with.

"I imagine you at the ball in lilac."

"And why in lilac precisely?" asked Anna, smiling. "Now,
children, run along, run along. Do you hear? Miss Hoole is
calling you to tea," she said, tearing the children from her, and
sending them off to the dining room.

"I know why you press me to come to the ball. You expect a great
deal of this ball, and you want everyone to be there to take part
in it."

"How do you know? Yes."

"Oh! what a happy time you are at," pursued Anna. "I remember,
and I know that blue haze like the mist on the mountains in
Switzerland. That mist which covers everything in that blissful
time when childhood is just ending, and out of that vast circle,