“‘A calf wants but its mother’s teat, yet wanders everywhere for it. So with the fool, whose will’s his rule,’” she murmured to herself, not caring to contradict him, nor indeed paying much heed to what he said. She was to return home now, and had so small a mind to do so, that it was almost with tears that she took leave of them, and dragged herself slowly away. At her cabin, it was still noisier and merrier than before. Nastka had run in, and was laughing so gaily with Yuzka that Yagna could hear them out in the road. “Do you know? my rod has blossomed!” she cried to Yagna as the latter entered. “Your rod? what rod?” “The one I cut on St. Andrew’s night, planted in sand upon the stove—and behold, it has blossomed! I looked at it yesterday, and there was not a single blossom yet.” She brought the pot of sand to show her; there stood in it a rather large spray of a cherry-tree, studded with delicate blossoms. “Oh, what fragrant pink flowers!” said Vitek wistfully. “So they are, so they are!” All crowded round, and gazed on the sweet-scented spray with great joy and wonder. But just then Yagustynka came in, now again her former self, loud of speech, bold, and always seeking an opportunity to sting someone to the quick. “Aye, Yuzka, the rod has blossomed, but not for you: what you need yet is the strap, or a good stout cudgel!” Thus she spoke at once on entering. “For me, for me, it has blossomed!” she cried. “I myself cut it on St. Andrew’s night: I myself!” “But,” Yagna explained, “you are as yet too young; no doubt it has foretold Nastka’s marriage.” “We both together put it in the pot; but I cut it, and so it has blossomed for me!” Yuzka insisted, while the tears sprang to her eyes, because her right to the prediction was not admitted. “Plenty of time before you, Yuzka, to run after young men and wait at stiles for them: let your elders go first,” said Yagna, smiling at Nastka. “So, Yuzka, be quiet.—Here’s news for you all: that Magda who was at the organist’s gave birth in the church porch last night!” “Can such a thing be?” “It can, for it has been. When Ambrose went out to ring, he stumbled over the girl.” “O Lord! and she did not die of cold?” “No, not she; but her child did. Yet she all but died herself. They took her to the priest’s dwelling, and they are tending her still. But ... ’twere better they had let her alone. What has she to live for? Can aught of good come to her now?” “Matthew told me that when the organist turned her away, she was always at the miller’s, and staying there overnight, till at last—probably by the miller’s directions—her Franek beat her and sent her flying.”