“Meantime,” her sister put in, “Yagna takes no care. She is a shrewd one, she, and enjoys herself to the full!” “How so?” She had risen from her seat, and was looking at her sister with alarm. Had Yagna found and taken the money? “Oh, she only takes what pleasure she can get out of life: dresses well, calls on her good friends, and has seven holidays a week. She was seen sitting with the Voyt in the tavern parlour yesterday, and the Jew could not fetch them drinks fast enough!” “Everything must come to an end,” Hanka muttered sullenly, tying her apron over her head to go. “True: but then ‘Pleasure, once taken, cannot be snatched from you’—and she knows it.” “’Tis easy to be wise in that way, if one has naught to care about!—But, Veronka, we are to kill the pig to-day: come you this evening to help.” And, cutting short her sister’s everlasting complaints, she made her way out. Her father, who was now in the room she had once occupied, lay moaning and almost hidden under a heap of straw. “What ails ye, Father?” She sat down by his side. “Nothing, my dear daughter, nothing: only the ague shakes me sorely, and my inwards are wrung and twisted.” “Because ’tis here as wet and as cold as out of doors. Rise and come over to us; ye can tend the children. And then—we shall kill the pig ... if so be as ye have a mind to eat of it?” “To eat? Aye, a little. They forgot to give me any food yesterday.—I shall come, Hanka, I shall come!” And he sighed, but with pleasure, as he crept out of the straw bed. Hanka, her mind full of the thought of Yagna, walked over to the tavern as fast as she could. The Jew no longer exacted payment in advance, but with the most obsequious eagerness weighed and measured out all she wanted, setting out many another article besides, to tempt her. She was very short with him. “Yankel!” she said haughtily; “give what I ask, and no more. I am no child, and know what I wish to have.” But the Jew only smiled. She had bought things for between ten and twenty _zloty_, and also enough vodka to suffice for the coming festival of Easter besides; and rolls in scores, and loaves of fine bread, and eight salt herrings ... and even, to crown all, a small bottle of rum. Hardly could she carry the parcel, when made up. “What! That Yagna enjoys herself: and I, who work so hard, am I to be worse off than a dog?” But, though such was her thought on setting out, it was speedily followed by remorse. The expense was unnecessary.—But for shame, she would have made the Jew take the rum back again. She found everybody in the cabin busy preparing things. Ambrose sat by the fire, exchanging verbal thrusts with Yagustynka, who was engaged in scalding the various vessels to be used; and the room was full of steam. “We were waiting for you, to knock your little pig on the head!” “Ye have arrived very early!”