“Oh, there are plenty. No lack of young men, no! Lads as straight as arrows, smoking cigarettes, dancing in the tavern, swallowing drams of vodka, and with a keen eye for any girl that has a few acres and a bit of money. Wretched husbandmen, though, who rise at noonday, and in the afternoon carry dung in a wheelbarrow, and till the land with a hoe!” “I will not let my Yagna stoop to any such!” “They say you are the wisest of us all; and they say true.” “On the other hand—small delight can an old man give a young girl.” “She may find young ones to delight her—not a few.” She eyed him severely. “So reverend in years, yet so careless in talk!” A pause ensued. “He’s an honourable elder, and not greedy of other folk’s money.” “No, no! naught but sin can come of it!” “Well, but he might make a marriage settlement,” he continued, now quite serious, and knocking the ashes out of his pipe. The reply, when it came, was given with hesitation. “Yagna has enough of her own.” “He would give more than what he received; certainly more.” “What’s that you say?” “What I know. Neither the wind nor my fancy has taught it me: I come here in another’s name.” Silence again. The old housewife took a long time to straighten the tangled flax on the distaff; then, wetting her left thumb and finger, she drew out the long fibres, while her right set the spindle whirling, flapping and whirring along the floor like a top. “Well then, shall he send her his friends with vodka?” “He? Who?” “Know you not? He that dwells over there!” And Ambrose pointed to the lights in Boryna’s hut, twinkling across the pond. “His family are grown up: they will oppose it. Besides, they have a right to their portions.” “But he can always make a settlement with what is his own! He is a good man, and no indifferent farmer; religious into the bargain. And hale! Lord, I have seen the man heave more than two bushels of rye in a sack on to his shoulders. Let your Yagna wish for anything in the world except pigeon’s milk, and she will get it. And then, the lad Andrew is next year to be a conscript. Now, Boryna knows all about official matters, and whom to apply to, and may be of great use.” “But how do you, Yagna, look upon this?” “Indifferently.—If you say: ‘Marry him’ I will. It is for you, not for me, to decide.” She spoke very low, her forehead touching her distaff, while, looking vacantly into the fire, she listened as the faggots crackled merrily. “Well?” Ambrose queried, rising from his seat. “Let his friends come”; the words dropped one by one from the old dame’s lips. “A betrothal is not a wedding yet.” Ambrose crossed himself and went out, making straight for Boryna’s cabin. Yagna was sitting dumb and motionless. “Yagna dearest, what do you say to this?” “Naught whatever; it is all the same to me. If you like, I marry Boryna; if not, I stay with you.... By your side, I am very well off.” Her mother spoke in subdued tones as she went on spinning: