She was presently close to Klemba’s property. “Lord! there is not one man to be seen!” she cried.—She was now so near the village that she could smell the smoke of the chimneys, and see the beds and cushions laid out to air in the orchard. Her heart was brimming over with thankfulness for having been spared till now, and allowed to come back to her people. In this hope she had been able to live through the winter: it had upheld and strengthened her against cold and want and death itself. She sat down under some bushes, to arrange her dress a little, but could not. Joy made her limbs quiver and her heart flutter like a strangled bird. “There are still some good kind people here,” she whispered, looking hard at her wallet. She had put by, she knew, quite enough for her burial. For many a year she had set her heart upon one thing: to die (when our Lord should call her) in her own village, lying in a cottage, on a feather-bed, and beneath a row of holy images upon the wall: as all goodwives die. And for many a year she had been saving against that last, that sacred hour! Now at the Klembas’, up in the loft, she had a chest, and within that chest a great feather-bed, with sheets and pillows, and new pillow-covers: all clean, and none of them ever used, in order to be always in readiness. There was no other place to put that bedding, for she never had a room or a bedstead to herself, but was used to sleep in some corner, on a litter of straw, or in the cow-house, according to circumstances, and as the people of the house allowed her. For she would never assert herself, nor make any complaints, being well aware that things take place in this world according to God’s will, and are not to be changed by sinful man. And yet—in secret, silently, and asking to be forgiven for her pride—she had dreamed of this one thing: to be buried like a village goodwife. For this she had long prayed in fear and trembling. Naturally, therefore, on arriving in the village, and aware that her last hour was not far off, she set about considering whether there was anything that she had forgotten. No. She had got all that was required. With her she carried a Candlemas taper that she had begged after a nightwatch over a dead body; a bottle of holy water; a new sprinkling-brush, a consecrated picture of Our Lady of Chenstohova, which she should hold when dying, and a few score _zloty_ for her burial, which might possibly also suffice for a Mass to be said, before the body, with candles and the rite of sprinkling performed at the church-door. For she never dreamed that the priest would accompany the body to the grave. _That_ was out of the question. Not every landowner had the luck of being honoured thus; besides, the fee for that alone would swallow up all her savings! She sighed heavily and rose to her feet, feeling much weaker than usual. Her lungs hurt her greatly, and she was so racked with coughing that she could hardly crawl along.