One day grandfather returned from the town very wet. It was autumn, and the rains were falling. Shaking himself on the threshold like a sparrow, he said triumphantly:
"Well, young rascal, you are going to a new situation to-morrow."
"Where now?" asked grandmother, angrily.
"To your sister Matrena, to her son."
"O Father, you have done very wrong."
"Hold your tongue, fool! They will make a man of him."
Grandmother let her head droop and said nothing more.
In the evening I told Ludmilla that I was going to live in the town.
"They are going to take me there soon," she informed me, thoughtfully. "Papa wants my leg to be taken off altogether. Without it I should get well."
She had grown very thin during the summer; the skin of her face had assumed a bluish tint, and her eyes had grown larger.