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More Tales from Tolstoi large village church, round which the invalid's carriage was just then passing.

The carriage and calesche stopped together at the posting-station. Out of the calesche stepped the sick woman's husband and the doctor, who came up to the carriage.

"How are you now?" asked the doctor, taking her hand and feeling her pulse.

"Are you not a little tired, my friend?" inquired her husband in French, "Don't you want to get out?"

The maid, looking after her wraps, squeezed herself into a corner, so as to be as much out of the way of the conversation as possible.

"Pretty much the same as before, but it doesn't matter," replied the invalid. "I won't get out."

The husband, after pausing a short time, went into the post-station. The maid, skipping out of the carriage, tripped lightly on the tips of her toes over the mud into the open door.

"My feeling bad is no reason why you should not have your breakfast," said the invalid, smiling slightly at the doctor, who was standing at the carriage window. "Not one of them mind me," added she, as soon as the doctor had, with noiseless step, quitted her, and darted up the steps of the post-station like a lynx. "They are well—so it is all one to them. Oh, my God!"

"I tell you what, Edward Ivanovich," said the husband, encountering the doctor and pressing his arms with a merry smile, "I have ordered them to bring us a drink. What do you say to that?"