Hanka, after taking a look into the byre and stable as she entered, went in and laid herself down at once. “Let him but return and be master here: I shall never say a word to him of what has been,” was her resolution while she was undressing.—“Ah, but,” she thought once more, hearing Yagna opening the door on the other side, “what if he should fall and go to her again?” Listening, thinking, she lay still for some time. All was growing silent, with the hum of voices fading into the distance, and the faint clatter of the last wagons going away. “——Then there would be no God, no justice in this world!” she ejaculated fiercely.—But a deep sleep came over her, and she gave up thinking of this. * * * * * The village awoke very late the next day. Morning was already opening his pale-blue slumberous eyes, and as yet those of the Lipka folk were all fast closed. The sun rose directly in the East, making the ponds and the dewy meadows glitter: its beams floated down from the pallid sky above, singing to the world its Hallelujah—its song of warmth and light. Merry and sparkling, that song was echoed among the ground-mists: birds twittered gladly, the waters tinkled and bubbled with mirth, the great woods murmured, the breeze blew, the young leaves quivered, the very clods were a-tremble; and from the undulating fleeces on the cornlands, bright dewdrops fell like tears upon the earth. “Ah! the grand day of joy for us is dawning: Conqueror of death, Christ rose on Easter morning! Hallelujah!” Yes, Christ had risen—He, tortured and slain by the wickedness of men. Again He had returned to life, He, the Well-beloved, as light rising up in darkness; had opened the cruel grip of death; for the welfare of man He had vanquished the invincible. And behold Him now, in that spring season, hiding mysteriously in His sacred sun, to sow happiness throughout the world—to rouse the faint—to quicken the dead—to raise the fallen ones, and make fertile the fallows! One cry echoed over all the land: Hallelujah! for the great day that the Lord had made! In Lipka alone were the folk less uproariously joyful than in former years. They slept most soundly. Only when the sun had risen above the orchards did the people begin to move, and the doors to creak, and unkempt tousled heads to peep outside the cabins at the country-side steeped in light, ringing with the songs of larks, and overspread with delicate verdure. So at Boryna’s, too, the folk were sleeping. Hanka alone, anxious that Pete should get the horses and britzka ready, rose a little earlier, and then set to making out the portions of the Hallow-fare for each.