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Rh that with difficulty could one distinguish whether she were weeping, or whether she were merely improvising to herself a mournful "song without words." Also, on Antip returning with the watercart, there would advance to meet it, with pails, cans, and pitchers, a number of maidservants and grooms, while from the storehouse an old woman would produce a vessel of meal and a pile of eggs, and carry them to the kitchen. There, on the cook suddenly throwing some water out of the window, the cat Arapka—which, with eyes fixed upon the view, had spent the morning in agitating the tip of her tail and licking herself—came in for a splashing.

The head of the family, too, was not idle, for he spent the morning in sitting by the window and following with his eyes everything which took place in the courtyard.

"Hi, Ignashka, what have you there, you rascal?" he cried to a man who happened to cross the open space.

"Some knives to be sharpened in the scullery," the man replied, without looking at his master.

"Very well, then. Mind you sharpen them properly."