"Pray come in," said Simon. "What can we do for you?" The woman sat down by the table. The two little girls pressed close to her knees, afraid of the people in the hut. "I want leather shoes made for these two little girls for spring." "We can do that. We never have made such small shoes, but we can make them; either welted or turnover shoes, linen lined. My man, Michael, is a master at the work." Simon glanced at Michael and saw that he had left his work and was sitting with his eyes fixed on the little girls. Simon was surprised. It was true the girls were pretty, with black eyes, plump, and rosy-cheeked, and they wore nice kerchiefs and fur coats, but still Simon could not understand why Michael should look at them like that--just as if he had known them before. He was puzzled, but went on talking with the woman, and arranging the price. Having fixed it, he prepared the measure. The woman lifted the lame girl on to her lap and said: "Take two measures from this little girl. Make one shoe for the lame foot and three for the sound one. They both have the same size feet. They are twins." Simon took the measure and, speaking of the lame girl, said: "How did it happen to her? She is such a pretty girl. Was she born so?" "No, her mother crushed her leg." Then Matryona joined in. She wondered who this woman was, and whose the children were, so she said: "Are not you their mother then?" "No, my good woman; I am neither their mother nor any relation to them. They were quite strangers to me, but I adopted them." "They are not your children and yet you are so fond of them?" "How can I help being fond of them? I fed them both at my own breasts. I had a child of my own, but God took him. I was not so fond of him as I now am of them." "Then whose children are they?" IX The woman, having begun talking, told them the whole story. "It is about six years since their parents died, both in one week: their father was buried on the Tuesday, and their mother died on the Friday. These orphans were born three days after their father's death, and their mother did not live another day. My husband and I were then living as peasants in the village. We were neighbors of theirs, our yard being next to theirs. Their father was a lonely man; a wood-cutter in the forest. When felling trees one day, they let one fall on him. It fell across his body and crushed his bowels out. They hardly got him home before his soul went to God; and that same week his wife gave birth to twins--these little girls. She was poor and alone; she had no one, young or old, with her. Alone she gave them birth, and alone she met her death."