"Not the wooden box!" screamed Daria. "Oh, let's go at once! Come, Var-Vara! What a surprise for papa when he gets back! Is it the wooden box? You might tell me," cried Daria, fixing her blue eyes on the old mujik's face pleadingly.
"It may be, and it mayn't be," replied the old man. "You may come along with me if you like, Daria Andreïevna. I'll show you the way to where I live—near the forest, you know. Of course, I've heard all about the reward," he continued, "and as I was clearing a bit of my yard this morning, what should I find but a heap of something hard—pebbles, and drift, and sticks, and such like. When I came to sorting it out—for I thought, 'Why waste good wood, when you can burn it? the good God doesn't like waste'—I struck against the corner of something hard, and there was a——. Well, what do you think, Daria Andreïevna?"
"A box! A box!" cried Daria, seizing one of the old man's hands, and dancing round him in an ecstasy of delight.
"Not at all, Daria Andreïevna! The legs of an old chair."
Daria's face fell. "I don't see why you come to tell papa you've found an old chair!" she said crossly.
"Stop a bit, Matoushka. There's more to come. Where was I?"
"The chair! You'd just found it," said Daria, pulling at his hand impatiently.
"So I had. A chair! Well, it had no back, and as I pulled it out it felt heavy, very heavy. It wasn't much to look at—a poor chair I should call it—and I thought, 'This isn't much of a find;' but there inside it was something sticking as tight as wax!"
"The box!" cried Daria, "I felt sure of it!" and seizing Var-Vara by one hand, and the mujik by the other, she dragged them down the street, the old peasant remonstrating and grumbling.
"Not so fast, Daria Andreïevna!" said Var-Vara, gasping for breath at the sudden rush. "Let Ivan go first; he knows the way!"