“But come down out of those clouds!” cried Kmita.
With that the cavaliers burst into one enormous laugh; but all at once remembering the command of Kmita, they seized their mustaches with their hands.
Kokosinski was confused in the highest degree. He grew purple, and said, “Do the greeting yourselves, pagans, since you confuse me.”
Panna Aleksandra took again, with the tips of her fingers, her skirt. “I could not follow you gentlemen in eloquence,” said she, “but I know that I am unworthy of those homages which you give me in the name of all Orsha.”
And again she made a courtesy with exceeding dignity, and it was somehow out of place for the Orsha roisterers in the presence of that courtly maiden. They strove to exhibit themselves as men of politeness, but it did not become them. Therefore they began to pull their mustaches, to mutter and handle their sabres, till Kmita said,—
“We have come here as if in a carnival, with the thought to take you with us and drive to Mitruny through the forest, as was the arrangement yesterday. The snow-road is firm, and God has given frosty weather.”
“I have already sent Aunt Kulvyets to Mitruny to prepare dinner. But now, gentlemen, wait just a little till I put on something warm.”
Then she turned and went out.
Kmita sprang to his comrades. “Well, my dear lambs, isn’t she a princess? Now, Kokosinski, you said that she had saddled me, and why were you as a little boy before her? Where have you seen her like?”
“There was no call to interrupt me; though I do not deny that I did not expect to address such a person.”