Page:The Way of a Virgin.djvu/187

Rh and was assured that he brought her some viands for the feast; she went to meet him and found her daughter!

"Ah! little mother!" cried the latter. "Unbind me swiftly ere any see me."

The old woman unbound her and asked what it signified.

"And thy husband, where is he?" she demanded.

"The horse threw him into the road."

These two entered the house and gazed through the window. Danilka arrived, approached some small boys who were playing at knuckle-bones, stopped, and looked about him. The mother-in-law dispatched her eldest daughter to him. She drew near, saying:

"Good day, Danilka Ivanitch."

"Good-day."

"Come into the house. The feast lacketh but thee."

"Is my wife within?"

"Yea."

"And hath the blood ceased to flow?"

But the young girl spat and ran away from him.

Then the mother-in-law dispatched her daughter-in-law, who would appease him.

"Come, come, little Danilka. The blood hath ceased to flow this long time."

She led him within the house, and the mother-in-law came to meet him, saying:

"Welcome, my dear little son-in-law."

"Varvara—is she within?"

"Yea."

"And hath the blood ceased to flow?"