“I would fain do all for the best, my dear. True, he is old, but strong and hearty still. And, besides, he will treat you courteously, not as other peasants might do. You will be the mistress and the head of his house. Also, when he makes the settlement, I shall arrange matters so that the land he will leave to us will touch ours.... And then, were the amount only six acres—think of it, Yagna! six acres more!—And then remember: you must marry, you _must_! Why should the tongues of all the village gossips wag to defame you?... We should have to kill the pig....” Here she broke off, and went on to settle other matters within herself; for Yagna was spinning mechanically, as if she had heard nothing said. Was she, she mused, unhappy at her mother’s? She did what she liked; no one ever said a cross word to her. Acres, settlement, possessions, nay, even a husband—what did she care for them all? Were the lads who sought her few in number? Had she a mind, she could bring them all to propose to her the same evening.... Her mind was little by little being made up, as was the flaxen thread she span; and as that thread turned in one direction only, so she determined on one thing—to marry Boryna, if her mother cared for the marriage—Yes; she liked him better than the rest: had he not bought her a ribbon and a kerchief?—True; yet Antek, and others as well, if they owned Boryna’s money, would do as much for her.—No, no: let her mother choose, whose head was good at such things: her own was not. She looked towards the window, where the withered and blackened dahlia bushes were tapping, lashed by the gale. By and by she forgot them, forgot everything, forgot her very self, and fell into a state of beatific inertness like that which now held the earth around her in those deathly quiet nights of autumn. For Yagna’s soul was even as that earth; as that earth, it had its abysses, dreamy, chaotic, known to none. Vast it was, but unconscious of its own vastness; mighty, yet without either will or desire or longing—inanimate, yet immortal; like that earth, too, swept by every blast that took hold of her, and seized upon her, and did with her whatsoever it listed.... And likewise, in the springtime, the warm sun would awake her, and flood her with life, and fill her with the quivering flame of desire and love; and like the earth, her soul would conceive—it could do naught else; would live and sing, rule, create, and annihilate its creations—it could do naught else; it would exist—it could not but exist! Such was that hallowed earth; such was the soul of Yagna, like unto that same earth. Long did she sit thus, mute: only those eyes of hers were glittering as still waters at noon in spring, or as gleam the stars. Suddenly she awoke from her reverie: someone had opened the front door. It was Yuzka, who rushed breathless into the room. Shaking the water out of her clogs, she said: “Yagna, we have the leaf-plucking to-morrow: will you come?” “Of course.”