Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 162.djvu/116

104 before burdening himself with a family. He had chosen his wife solely for her industrious and hard-working qualities, though she had brought him no portion; having justly calculated that a woman who is able and willing to work is a better bargain in the end than a light-headed girl, who would, in a couple of years, waste more than she had brought to her husband's house.

Their union was a model one, and often held up by the village priest as an example to the other villagers. They had had several children, but most of them had died young, and at the time this story opens, they had but two remaining, a boy and a girl, who were twins, and three years old.

After the couple had duly saluted the lady, according to peasant etiquette, by pressing deferential kisses upon her shoulder and elbows, the husband began.

"It is about some wood, noble pani, that I have made bold to come up here. Three new coffins have been ordered for to-morrow afternoon, and I can procure no more boards in the village to finish them. I have just come back from the saw-mill down the valley, but they cannot let me have the planks till the next day; and the Jew asks an impertinent price for them besides," he muttered in a lower tone.

"I would gladly help you, but I do not know whether we have any boards to spare," answered Sophie gently. "You know the wood will not be brought from the forest till next month, when the harvest is over. I think there are a few old boards lying in the stackyard; you are welcome to take those."

"Thank you, gracious lady," said Filip, without any particular gratitude in his voice, for he had already marked those boards, as he came in, and measured them with his eye in passing — "thank you; those boards you speak of would just about suffice for the coffins without the lids, but I do not know where to take the covers from. I must have them ready by noon to-morrow, and one is for a full-grown man too."

"I am afraid I can think of nothing else," began Madame Wolska regretfully; while Filip, through the open glass doors, was eying the various articles of furniture, dimly seen in the drawing-room within, as though speculating on the possibility of turning a mahogany table into a coffin, or laying a dead man to rest within a grand pianoforte.

"If you please, gracious pani," now put in Magda, who had remained standing on the verandah steps, "there are several large packing-cases in the store-room. The one which held last year's apples is nearly empty, perhaps it might do."

Filip Buska now turned for the first time and looked at Magda. It was not his habit to look at women unless there happened to be any particular reason for so doing; and as he now looked at Magda, it was not to take notice of her brilliant eyes and glowing color, but merely to say to himself, "That is an intelligent lass to have thought of the packing-case with the apples."

"Yes, to be sure! The packing-cases in the store-room," said Madame Wolska, in a tone of relief. "Tell the housekeeper — but no, I will go myself;" and she rose from her seat.

Sophie Wolska had not yet acquired the fine-lady habit of gracefully doing nothing. She had been accustomed to work all her life, and could not so quickly get out of the groove. Passing through the large and rather inadequately furnished drawing-room, whose bare white walls were adorned only by two gilt-framed mirrors, and one staring portrait of a sour-faced old man in a black coat and gold watch-chain, she took a heavy bunch of keys from the writing-table, and proceeded to the store-room, followed by Magda and the peasant couple.

It was a large and roomy store-room, in which Sophie Wolska took a special pride, and delighted in visiting every day. Well-cured hams and tongues were suspended from the rafters above; barrels of flour, rice, and other grains stood ready for use; glass jars, containing tempting-looking home-made jams and compotes stood ranged in neat rows upon the wooden shelves, each glass neatly ticketed and inscribed in Madame Wolska's own hand-writing — that elegant handwriting which but a few years ago she had so wearily struggled to impart to dull-headed and clumsy-fingered pupils.

Huge canisters of tea, coffee, and sugar stood on the tables; parcels of dates, almonds, raisins, and many other dainties were hidden away in the drawers of the presses. The open windows, admitting a free current of air, were carefully guarded from intruding insects by a close wire netting, against which myriads of flies beat and bruised themselves in helpless fury at not being able to reach those delicacies thus tantalizingly displayed before their eyes. The angry hum of the baffled insects revibrated throughout the room.

"There are two cases," said Madame