lina'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Fitzpatrick upon Paulina's house was withdrawn as far as Irma and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.
It added greatly to Paulina's joy and to her sense of importance
that her house was selected to be the scene of the momentous event.
For long weeks Paulina's house became the life centre of the
colony, and as the day drew nigh every boarder was conscious of
a certain reflected glory. It is no wonder that the selecting of
Paulina's house for the wedding feast gave offence to Anka's tried
friend and patron, Mrs. Fitzpatrick. To that lady it seemed that
in selecting Paulina's house for her wedding Anka was accepting
Paulina's standard of morals and condoning her offences, and it
only added to her grief that Anka took the matter so lightly.

"I'm just affronted at ye, Anka," she complained,
"that ye can step inside th