The withdrawing of Mrs. Fitzpatrick from Paulina's life meant a
serious diminution in interest for the unhappy Paulina, but with
the characteristic uncomplaining patience of her race she plodded
on with the daily routine at washing, baking, cleaning, mending,
that filled up her days. There was no break in the unvarying
monotony of her existence. She gave what care she could to the two
children that had been entrusted to her keeping, and to her baby.
It was well for her that Irma, whose devotion to the infant became
an absorbing passion, developed a rare skill in the care of the
child, and it was well for them all that the ban placed by Mrs.
Fitzpatrick upon Paulina's house was withdrawn as far as Irma and
the baby were concerned, for every day the little maid presented
her charge to the wise and watchful scrutiny of Mrs. Fitzpatrick.

The last days of 1884, however, brought an event that cast a glow
of colour over the life of Paulina and the whole foreign colony.
This event was none other than the marriage of Anka Kusmuk and
Jacob Wassyl, Paulina's most popular lodger. A wedding is a great
human event. To the principals the event becomes the pivot of
existence; to the relatives and friends it is at once the
consummation of a series of happenings that have absorbed their
anxious and amused attention, and the point of departure for a new
phase of existence offering infinite possibilities in the way of
speculation. But even for the casual onlooker a wedding furnishes a
pleasant arrest of the ordinary course of life, and lets in upon
the dull grey of the commonplace certain gleams of glory from the
golden days of glowing youth, or from beyond the mysterious planes
of experience yet to be.

All this and more Anka's wedding was to Paulina and her people.