Almost every day, she would look in at the organist’s, always when Yanek was at home. Sometimes he happened to sit by her side, and she knew that his eyes were upon her; and then her face glowed, all on fire, her feet trembled and her heart would beat like a hammer. At other times, when he was giving his sisters lessons in the next room, she would listen, holding her breath, and so extremely attentive to the sweet sounds of his voice that the old dame once asked her why she gave ear so eagerly. “Because Master Yanek teaches in such learned wise that I cannot understand anything at all!” “And are ye so fain to do so?” she replied with a smile of pity. “My son has learned in no mean school!” she added with pride, and continued expatiating on her Yanek for some time. She was fond of Yagna, and liked her to come; the girl was handy at every sort of work, and besides very often brought something—pears, wild strawberries, whortleberries, sometimes even a pat of fresh butter. Yagna listened with eager attention to all she said; but when Yanek left the house, she would presently hurry away—to her mother’s, she said. She loved to gaze on him from a distance; and at times, too, hidden in the rye or behind a tree, she would gloat over him for a long time, and with such tender emotion that the tears would fall in spite of her. But her joy was greatest in the short warm clear summer nights. As soon as her mother was asleep, she carried her bedding out into the orchard, where, lying on her back, she looked up at the stars scintillating through the tree-tops, and dreamed sweetly of the “world without end.” The sultry night-winds swept over her face and the stars looked down into her wide-open eyes; the voices out of the fragrant darkness, the breathless whispers of the leaves, the broken rustling of the creatures slumbering around—feeble sighs and dull stifled calls and timid chuckling sounds—melted within her into a weird music, penetrating her with a hot thrill that made her catch her breath, and quiver, and fall down, rolling on the cool dewy sward on which she lay like a fruit fallen from the tree. There she would remain, prone and powerless, in the clutch of the almighty force of Nature, as did the ripening fields, the fruit-burdened branches, the broad yellow wheat-lands, ready for the sickle, the birds, the blasts, or for any fate that awaited them, indifferently expecting all! Thus did Yagna spend the short warm clear nights and the burning days of July: they passed by her like a delightful dream, repeated again and again, and always more desirable. And she moved about, too, as in a dream, scarce knowing whether it was day or night. Dominikova noted that something unusual was taking place in Yagna, but she knew not what: only she was rejoiced at her unexpected and most fervent piety, and would often say: “Yagna, I tell you: whoso seeks God, to him doth God come!”