Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 162.djvu/122

110 soaked with tears) sent to the wash, — above all, a certain number of moons allowed to elapse, before the surviving partner could be allowed to quit the shade of willows and cypresses, and begin to take notice of fLowers that grow in the sunshine.

Only last week she had had her susceptibilities rudely shocked, when, on opening a bandbox sent from her dressmaker in town, she had perceived with horror that the frivolous priestess of fashion had taken the liberty to replace the dead black crape ruffles she was wont to wear by some unseemly frillings of snowy lace. That frill she had felt to be positively indelicate, and had insisted on its instantaneous removal. She was therefore unable to put herself so quickly in another's place, and understand that there are many things which poor people cannot afford beyond silk dresses and dainty fare, and that mourning for a beloved wife may under circumstances become an unreasonable luxury.

It was therefore rather coldly that she said to Filip, —

"Then what do you want from me?"

"Only this, gracious pani," said Filip, rubbing his head as though he were trying to rub his meaning out of it; "there is no girl down in the village that would do for me. Most of them have got a sweetheart already, so I bethought myself of that dziewczyna (lass) up here — Magda I think they call her; she seems an active and a healthy girl; and she has a cow of her own, they tell me. She has no one courting her either, and she cooked the supper in a very handy fashion the other evening."

No one ever came in contact with Filip without being influenced by him; and by degrees his calm, sensible tone and matter-of-fact way of explaining the case had its effect on Madame Wolska, who relaxed so far as to promise to speak to Magda that very evening on the subject.

"She is a good girl, and I shall be sorry to lose her," she said. "But if, as you say, you must have a wife at once, I do not think you could easily find a better one. She is active and honest, a good girl, and a handsome one."

"A good girl, and a handsome one," summed up Filip, as though he took these qualities on trust on Madame Wolska's word, not having verified either point for himself. "A good girl and handsome, you say, and she has a cow."

This renewed allusion to the cow was most indelicate, Madame Wolska felt. If poor Julka's place were to be filled so soon, at least it was not fitting that such a vulgar animal as a cow should have any influence in determining her successor. She therefore endeavored to relegate the obnoxious quadruped into its proper place in the background, by expatiating again at greater length on the personal qualities of the bride-elect.

"Magda is very young and warm-hearted," she explained to Filip, "she is generous and impulsive, and will attach herself strongly to your children, I am sure. She will be easily led, if you are only kind. You could not have chosen a better wife."

Filip listened with a slightly contemptuous smile.

"None of the young girls nowadays are worth much," he remarked, as though he would say, "There's small choice in rotten apples," "but there is nothing better to be found. My Julka was of another sort; but I shall not find her like again. And as to kindness, why it was never my way to beat the women-folk. Then, thanking your graciousness," he concluded, kissing Madame Wolska's black woollen sleeve, "if the noble pani will speak to the young woman to-night, and to-morrow I shall send the bridesmen with the wódki."

From Macmillan's Magazine. IN A GREEK FAMILY TO-DAY. was not on account of the earthquake that we chose Chios for a visit; in fact, if we had thought twice about that catastrophe we should certainly have not gone there, for the ruins led us into frequent difficulties. Nor was it on account of the far-famed beauty of the island — its orange and lemon groves — nor on account of the mastic trees, from which the Chiotes supply the inmates of every harem in Turkey with gum to masticate; but simply because we were told that by riding on muleback for two days over the Chiote mountains to a certain distant village called Pyrghi we could there plunge ourselves into the depths of a population of Greeks of the ancient Ionian type, whose manners and customs would remind us of many things we had read of the Greeks of old, and whose hospitality was proverbial.

We rode accordingly for two weary days through the country devastated by the earthquake; we chewed the mastic, and we sniffed the air burdened with the