"Well, you are lucky!" she said to her, with a pleased look. "Our countess took a fancy to you at the first glance; you are now on the list of embroiderers! You may thank God for it. It is not often the countess takes a fancy like that at first sight."
"Is she, then, unkind?" innocently inquired the girl.
"Unkind! Oh, no; capricious, like all mistresses, but the kindest lady in the world, and generous! Besides, this is a rich house; nothing is counted—nothing at all. This is better than your village," continued Dacka, proud of belonging to such noble masters, and desirous to impress on the mind of the simple peasant girl the importance and dignity of the functions she was promoted to.
"It is more beautiful," replied Mavra, bending intently over her work.
"It was lucky they taught you to embroider, else you would have been sent to the poultry-yard to feed the cocks and hens and look after the calves. How did you learn?"
"My mother taught me; she was formerly in service; she was a dvorovaia in the time of the late countess. She married a peasant."
"Ah!" said Dacka, "I thought your manners were not quite those of a peasant girl; if your mother was in service, that's another thing. Come, take a cup of coffee with me. Prepare the coffee-pot and make haste before the others come; I can't ask every one, you understand."
To Mavra there was but little difference between the isba of her father and the workroom of the seignorial mansion. Here, as there, her life was spent in assiduous work from sunrise to sunset. There, her mother, an austere, somber woman, like most village matrons to whom life had proved no light matter; here, the lady's maid, often grumbling, but at times kind and even condescending. The chief difference between the two modes of life consisted in the daily visits of the countess, who generally said nothing, but passed with a solemn air through this roomful of silent, awe-stricken women. But one thing was lacking to Mavra, and this nothing could replace—the evening hour of rest which she used to spend by the fountain when sent to draw water for her mother, or on the threshold of their cabin, watching the spring rain falling soft and warm, melting the snow so quickly that its thickness might be seen visibly diminishing; or, again, in the month of May, standing at the edge of the forest, listening to the nightingales singing on the delicate golden branches of the perfumed birch tree.
Winter passed fairly well, but when the first breath of warm air set the melted snow streaming down the roofs, which again the night's frost transformed into long stalactites of ice, Mavra felt a strange, vague aching in her heart. The house was overheated, and the close, nauseous air made her sick. What would she not give to run as of old over the moors, to see if the moss were beginning to appear under the crystallized, transparent carpet of snow!
"What's the matter with this little girl?" asked the countess one day, as she stopped before the frame at which the young peasant girl was diligently working. "She was as fresh as a rose, and now she has grown yellow. Do you feel pain anywhere, Mavra?"