Maria Semenovna's fur-jacket for her to wear in winter when she went to
market.

The lame tailor was a clever man, and a keen observer: he had seen many
different people owing to his profession, and was fond of reflection,
condemned as he was to a sedentary life.

Having worked a week at Maria Semenovna's, he wondered greatly about
her life. One day she came to the kitchen, where he was sitting with his
work, to wash a towel, and began to ask him how he was getting on. He
told her of the wrong he had suffered from his brother, and how he now
lived on his own allotment of land, separated from that of his brother.

"I thought I should have been better off that way," he said. "But I am
now just as poor as before."

"It is much better never to change, but to take life as it comes," said
Maria Semenovna. "Take life as it comes," she repeated.

"Why, I wonder at you, Maria Semenovna," said the lame tailor. "You
alone do the work, and you are so good to everybody. But they don't
repay you in kind, I see."

Maria Semenovna did not utter a word in answer.

"I dare say you have found out in books that we are rewarded in heaven
for the good we do here."

"We don't know that. But we must try to do the best we can."