Page:More Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/259

 IX.—THREE DEATHS

was Autumn. A carriage and a calesche were proceeding at a sharp trot along the high-road. In the carriage sat two women. One of them was the mistress, thin and pale. The other was the maid, smug, florid, and buxom. Her short dry tresses peeped forth from under her faded bonnet, her pretty hand in her torn glove readjusted them from time to time; her swelling bosom, covered by a rug, was full of the breath of health; her quick black eyes glanced at one moment out of the window at the scurrying fields, at another stared boldly at her mistress, or glanced uneasily at the corners of the carriage. Before the very nose of the waiting-maid the bonnet of her mistress, attached to the netting of the carriage, rocked to and fro; on her knees lay a lap-dog, her legs were hunched up, the hand-box standing on the floor of the carriage and the drumming of her feet upon it was just audible amidst the creaking of the carriage-springs and the clattering of the window-glasses.

With her hands on her knees, and closed eyes, the mistress rocked softly on the pillows piled up behind her, and kept on coughing an internal cough,