"Why should I?"
"Yes, but—you are a lady. You have reached your majority, you have an estate of your own—what could be better?"
"And you are your uncle's heiress, you know," added the priest.
"No, I sha'n't live here."
"And how we were hoping for it! The father and I would often speak about our little mistress. We thought you would surely come to live at Pogorelka. In the summer it is very nice here. You can go to the woods and pick mushrooms," tempted the priest's wife.
"We have mushrooms even in a dry summer, plenty of mushrooms," chimed the priest.
At last Anninka left. When she reached Pogorelka, her first word was, "Horses! Please have the horses ready at once!" But Fedulych only shrugged his shoulders.
"What's the use of shouting horses? We haven't fed them yet," he grumbled.
"But why? Oh, my God, as if everybody were conspiring against me!"
"That's it, we have conspired. How can you help conspiring if it's clear as day that we can't ride at night in thawing weather? Anyway, you'll get stranded in the mud a whole night, so it is better to be stranded at home, I think."