The fence enclosing Gavrelo’s hut was strung with branches of green foliage. High over the gate a wreath of orange-colored flowers hung to mark the bride’s dwelling. Inside the yard was swept clean and sprinkled with yellow sand, and long benches stood along the walls. On the doorstep of the outhouse Natalka sat with her two bridesmaids trimming her veil. Natalka herself was making the little rosettes of red or green ribbon, and the maids stitched them on all over the long strip of white muslin. The maids were talking and giggling, their heads bent over their work. Natalka was quiet and solemn. In the deep interior of the outhouse Katherina was giving the last touches to the _kubial_. She lifted and replaced and folded and finally fitted the cover and slipped in the bar. It was done! Her hands fell at her sides. Katherina had grown thinner, paler, more pinched. Since she prayed before the icon she had spent the time from day to day, from hour to hour, waiting. But nothing--nothing had happened to save Natalka. Since that hour at dusk, she, Katherina, had spent morning and night kneeling before the icon. She had been to the cemetery many times, where her dead were laid, and hung their moldy wooden crosses with new little aprons of many colors. She had watched Gavrelo from day to day, hoping for a sign of relenting, of softening. But none had come. Sullen, stolid, he went about as usual, working early and late in the fields and at the barns, only coming in to eat his three meals of black bread and cabbage soup, and to sleep the few hours between the extreme dark and early dawn. Standing there, she could hear him now at the barns, still working--still working--while others were long at rest. “Ach, Gavrelo!” she cried to him silently, “what is it all for? What are you doing it for, Gavrelo?” She lifted her coarse apron and wiped away stinging tears. The shadow before the door had just fallen on the threshold. By clock time it would have been perhaps ten in the morning. A wagon lined with green leaves and buttercups, harnessed to four pair, stood at the gate in the road. The horses were snorting and beating the ground impatiently, and a sturdy youth sat holding the reins mightily. Within, the yard flashed with color--red, short, wide skirts, blue and green streamers, red bandannas, white shirts, patent-leather boots, sparkling black or green beads, shining brass buttons.