"Shame, Yanko!" she said. "I have a mule-man for a husband. It is that you think of nothing but piastres, and are afraid of taking on yourself for two days such work as Mitsos spends his months in. Am I to sit here and see you drinking and eating and sleeping, and never lift a hand for the sake of any but yourself? Ah, if I was a man I would not have chosen a wife with as little spirit as my husband has." Maria banged the wine-jug down on the table, and cast a scornful look at Yanko. Then she crossed over to Mitsos and took his glass to fill it, filling her own at the same time. "This to you," she said, clinking her glass at his, "and to the health of all brave men." Then with another scowl at Yanko: "Can't you even drink to those who are made different to yourself, if they are of a finer bake?" she said; "or is there not spirit in you for that? I should have been a mile on the way by this time," she said to Mitsos, "if it had pleased the good God to make me a man and send you with such a message to me." "You, Maria?" said Mitsos, suddenly. "Yes, and how many days of horse-hire does Yanko think I should have asked for my pains? Nay, I should have lit candles to the Virgin in the joy of having such work given me to do, if I had had to beg my way." Mitsos remembered Nicholas's directions. "Will you go?" he said. "You would do it as well as any man. It is just Father Priketes you have to ask for, and give the message." "Nonsense, Maria," said Yanko; "a woman can't do a thing like that." Maria's indignant speeches had a touch of the high rhetorical about them, but Yanko's remark just stamped them into earnestness. "You'll be drawing your own wine for yourself the next few days," she said, "and I shall be over the hills doing what you were afraid of. I'm blithe to go," she said to Mitsos, "and to-morrow daybreak will see me on the way."