evening, Marusia! why arn't you merry?"

"How can I be merry? My father is dead!"

"Oh! poor thing!"

They all grieved for her. Even the Accursed One himself
grieved; just as if it hadn't all been his own doing. By and by
they began saying farewell and going home.

"Marusia," says he, "see me off."

She didn't want to.

"What are you thinking of, child?" insist the girls. "What
are you afraid of? Go and see him off."

So she went to see him off. They passed out into the street.

"Tell me, Marusia," says he, "were you in the church?"

"No."

"Did you see what I was doing?"

"No."

"Very well! To-morrow your mother will die."

He spoke and disappeared. Marusia returned home sadder
than ever. The night went by; next morning, when she awoke,
her mother lay dead! She cried all day long; but when the
sun set, and it grew dark around, Marusia became afraid of
being left alone; so she went to her companions.

"Why, whatever's the matter with you? you're clean out of
countenance!"[21] say the girls.

"How am I likely to be cheerful? Yesterday my father
died, and to-day my mother."

"Poor thing! Poor unhappy girl!" they all exclaim sympathizingly.

Well, the time came to say good-bye. "See me off, Marusia,"
says the Fiend. So she went out to see him off.

"Tell me; were you in the church?"

"No."

"And saw what I was doing?"

"No."

"Very well! To-morrow evening you will die yourself!"

Marusia spent the night with her friends; in the morning
she got up and considered what she should do. She bethought
herself that she had a grandmother--an old, very old woman,
who had become blind from length of years. "Suppose I go
and ask her advice," she said, and then went off to her grandmother's.

"Good-day, granny!" says she.

"Good-day, granddaughter! What news is there with you?
How are your father and mother?"

"They are dead, granny," replied the girl, and then told
her all that had happened.

The old woman listened, and said:--

"Oh dear me! my poor unhappy child! Go quickly to the
priest, and ask him this favor--that if you die, your body shall
not be taken out of the house through the doorway, but that the
ground shall be dug away from under the threshold, and that
you shall be dragged out through that opening. And also beg
that you may be buried at a crossway, at a spot where four
roads meet.