She sighed, looking sorrowfully after him, as he went up the poplar road, whence a cloud of dust continually arose, to settle down in the fields around: the carts clattered on as before, and a thin line of red petticoats, in Indian file by the roadside, twinkled now and again among the trees. Presently Lipka relapsed into silence. The mill, the smithy, were closed; shortly the roads were also deserted, and all that remained at home were busy at work in the gardens, or pottering about the enclosures. Teresa went home in sore trouble. She lived beyond the church, close to Matthew, in a bit of a hut consisting of one large room and the half of a passage! At the division of the property, her brother had halved the cabin, and carried his share away to rebuild it on his own land. The sawn timbers of the roof and walls stood out like gaunt ribs against the soot-begrimed chimney. Nastka saw her from her threshold, there being but a narrow strip of orchard between them. “Well? well? has he read your letter?” she cried, running to her. Teresa explained her disappointment. “I fancy the organist is able to read writing. He could make it out.” “Certainly; but how can I go empty-handed?” “Take him a few eggs.” “Here I have ducks’ eggs only; Mother has taken the others to sell.” “No matter; he won’t refuse ducks’ eggs.” “I would fain go; but I fear so much! If I but knew what is written there!”... She took from her bosom a letter of her husband, which the Voyt had brought her from the office the day before. “What can there be in that letter?” Nastka took the grimy paper from her hands and, sitting down on the step of the stile, while Teresa seated herself on the upper bar, made a painful attempt to read it. Teresa, with her hands on her chin, gazed in terror at the cabalistic signs that Nastka was trying to spell out. But she could make out no more than “Praised be Jesus Christ!” at the beginning. “I cannot read any farther: ’tis useless. But Matthew would manage, no doubt.” She flushed a deep purple, and returned in a faint voice: “O Nastka! I do entreat you, tell him naught of this letter!” “Were it but in print! I can read any book, I know the letters perfectly.—But I can make nothing of these strokes and crooks and curls.... Just like a fly dipped into ink, and crawling over the paper.” “But, Nastka, you’ll not tell him?” “Only yesterday I said to you that I could not be mixed up in this.—But, if your man is coming home, all will have to come out!” she added, rising to her feet. Teresa could not answer a word; the tears she was trying to keep back choked her. Nastka withdrew, rather out of humour, calling her fowls as she went; and Teresa, making up five ducks’ eggs in a bundle, went to the organist’s. She was a good while getting there, stopping as she did every while, and slinking about in the shade, and staring at the incomprehensible symbols before her. “Perchance he is returning....”