“Emilka!” cried Marynia, with delight.
“Yes; it is I,” said the Sister. “This is a free day for me, and I wished to visit thee. Where is Pan Stanislav?”
“Stas is at the Mashkos, but he will return soon. Ah, how glad he will be! Sit down and rest.”
Pani Emilia sat down and began to talk. “I should run in oftener,” said she, “but I have no time. Since this is a free day, I was at Litka’s. If you could see how green the place is, and what birds are there!”
“We were there a few days ago. All is blooming; and such rest! What a pity that Stas is not at home!”
“True; besides, he has a number of Litka’s letters. I should like to ask him to lend them to me. Next week I’ll run in again and return them.”
Pani Emilia spoke calmly of Litka now. Maybe it was because there remained of herself only the shadow of a living person, which was soon to be blown away; but for the time there was in it undisturbed calm. Her mind was not absorbed so exclusively now by misfortune, and that previous indifference to everything not Litka had passed. Having become a Sister of Charity, she appeared again among people, and had learned to feel everything which made their fortune or misfortune, their joy or their sorrow, or even pleasure or suffering.
“But how nice it is in this house! After our naked walls, everything here seems so rich to me. Pan Stanislav was very indolent at one time: he visited the Bigiels and us, never wished to be elsewhere; but now I suppose he bestirs himself, and you receive many people?”
“No,” answered Marynia; “we visit only the Mashkos, Pani Bronich, and the Osnovskis.”
“But wait! I know Pani Osnovski; I knew her before she was married. I knew the Broniches, too, and their niece; but she had not grown up then. Pan Bronich died two years ago. Thou seest how I know every one.”