“Well, aren’t there plenty of young women in the village?” answered the cornet’s wife slyly as she carefully replaced the lid of the matchbox with her horny hands.
“Plenty, Mother, plenty,” remarked Lukáshka’s mother, shaking her head. “There’s your girl now, your Maryánka—that’s the sort of girl! You’d have to search through the whole place to find such another!” The cornet’s wife knows what Lukáshka’s mother is after, but though she believes him to be a good Cossack she hangs back: first because she is a cornet’s wife and rich, while Lukáshka is the son of a simple Cossack and fatherless, secondly because she does not want to part with her daughter yet, but chiefly because propriety demands it.
“Well, when Maryánka grows up she’ll be marriageable too,” she answers soberly and modestly.
“I’ll send the matchmakers to you—I’ll send them! Only let me get the vineyard done and then we’ll come and make our bows to you,” says Lukáshka’s mother. “And we’ll make our bows to Elias Vasílich too.”
“Elias, indeed!” says the cornet’s wife proudly. “It’s to me you must speak! All in its own good time.”
Lukáshka’s mother sees by the stern face of the cornet’s wife that it is not the time to say anything more just now, so she lights her rag with the match and says, rising: “Don’t refuse us, think of my words. I’ll go, it is time to light the fire.”
As she crosses the road swinging the burning rag, she meets Maryánka, who bows.
“Ah, she’s a regular queen, a splendid worker, that girl!” she thinks, looking at the beautiful maiden. “What need for her to grow any more? It’s time she was married and to a good home; married to Lukáshka!”
But Granny Ulítka had her own cares and she remained sitting on the threshold thinking hard about something, till the girl called her.