Page:Korolenko - Makar's Dream and Other Stories.djvu/275

Rh is a rich girl, and baby can see who ought to marry who. Send the match-makers to old Makogon."

"That's all very well! I knew that without being told. But what about Galya?"

"Do you want to hear to the end? Or do you yourself know what I'm going to say?"

"Come, come, don't get cross!"

"You make every one cross. I'm not the man to begin saying something and then stop before I've finished. Now, to come to Galya. Used she to love you?"

"I should say she did!"

"And what were you when she loved you?"

"A workman in the mill."

"Then a baby could understand that too. If the girl loved a workman once, let her marry a workman now."

The miller's eyes grew as round as saucers and his head began to go round like a mill-wheel.

"But I'm not a workman any longer!"

"How dreadful! And isn't there a workman at the mill?"

"You mean Gavrilo? So that's your idea, is it? Very well, let him give you a pair of boots for it! Neither he nor his uncle nor his aunts will ever see me stand that arrangement, I can tell you! I'd sooner go and break every bone in his body."

"Gracious, what a hot-tempered fellow you are; hot enough to boil an egg! I was going to tell you