standing on her nest on the old barn; the
couple had returned the day before in renewed love to the home they had
left last autumn. Marianna was crouching on the doorstep peeling
potatoes for supper, and quite close to her stood Mikolai with his back
against the wall and his hands in his trouser pockets, looking down
with a smile at the girl's firm brown neck that showed above her white
frill.

[Pg 201]

How beautiful everything was! Mrs. Tiralla closed her eyes as though
dazzled, then opened them wide with a dreamy expression and gave a deep
sigh full of longing. Everything spoke of love. What did it matter if
the butterflies were dead by to-morrow morning, if they were found
lying on the ground like small, withered leaves, killed by the night
that was still so raw? Had they not spent a merry hour, disporting
themselves at love's fair game? She looked round; where was Martin
Becker? Had he not returned from the fields with Mikolai?

"Heigh!" Her voice sounded shrill as she called to her stepson. "Where
are the others? Your friend and Rosa?"

"I don't know," answered the young man in a calm voice, and went on
philandering with the maid, in spite of his stepmother's arrival. He
had got hold of a long straw, with which he was tickling her neck, and
which he quickly hid behind his back whenever she let the potato-knife
fall and laughingly tried to seize it.

Where could Martin and Rosa be? They were not in the room downstairs,
for she had looked in at the low window. She gazed around with burning,
impatient eyes; where had they hidden themselves? All at once she felt
disgusted with the two flirting on the doorstep. Were they not ashamed
of themselves? She tore the straw angrily out of her stepson's hand and
pulled it to pieces. "Stop that nonsense," she said sharply, frowning.
"Go in, Marianna, _dalej_, don't lounge there any longer. When Mr.
Tiralla comes home we are to have supper, _dalej_."

Disturbed in her amusement, the maid, who was still quite hot from
laughing, murmured sullenly, "The master hasn't been out at all; he's
in the house. That [Pg 202] man was here"--she turned up her nose--"the
schoolmaster from Starawie['s]. I had to bring some bottles up from the
cellar, and they've been drinking beer and gin. Now the master has gone
to bed and is asleep." She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head as
she tripped away.

"Father drinks," said Mikolai, his laughing face all at once overcast.
"He never dran