brushwood, and went with him into the village. It was a warm day, and
the winter corn waved gently in the pleasant breeze.

"Here is my nephew, Boris Pavlovich," she said to the Starost. "Are you
getting in the hay while the warm weather lasts? We are sure to have
rain before long after this heat. Here is the Master, the real Master,
my nephew," she said, turning to the peasants. "Have you seen him before,
Garashka? Take a good look at him. Is that your calf in the rye,
Iliusha?" she said in passing to a peasant, while her attention already
wandered to the pond.

"There they are again, hanging out the clothes on the trees," she
remarked angrily to the village elder. "I have given orders for a line
to be fixed. Tell blind Agasha so. It is she that likes to hang her
things out on the willows. The branches will break...."

"We haven't a line long enough," answered the Starost sleepily. "We
shall have to buy one in the town."

"Why did you not tell Vassilissa? She would have let me know. I go into
the town every week, and would have brought a line long ago."

"I have told her, but she forgets, or says it is not worth while to
bother the Mistress about it."

Tatiana Markovna made a knot in her handkerchief. She liked it to be
said that nothing could be done without her; a clothes-line, for
instance, could be bought by anybody, but God forbid that she should
trust anybody with money. Although by no means avaricious, she was
sparing with money. Before she brought herself to part with it she was