"She has more in our savings-bank than any one of the girls. She would have still more, only that on Sundays she gives a whole day's wages to the beggar who sits at the church door."
"Does she go to church regularly?"
"Every Sunday she comes with us, but she never sits with the other girls; she kneels before a side-altar, covers her face with her hands, and prays all through mass."
"Is she good-tempered?"
"She has offended no one and has never been angry. Once a woman said something very offensive to her, for which we gave her a heavy fine. The woman was ready to pay it, but the girl denied that she had been offended. Soon after the woman got ill; she had no one to nurse her, because she is a solitary widow, and this girl nursed her every night, and fetched the medicine from the apothecary for her."
"Do you think she is a hypocrite?"
"She is too merry for that, and ready for a joke. Hypocrites are gloomy folk. Our people would soon find her out if she wasn't on the square; but she is a prime favorite with every one. We don't choose our words exactly, but we can make a fair guess at the girl who respects herself. We like one that gives a good box on the ear to a fellow who would make too free. Sharp with the hand, but soft with her tongue; that's our sort. And still, sometimes I have watched her when she was in quite another mood; for instance, on Sunday afternoons, when we sit under the mulberry-trees, they all get round me and make me tell them—God knows how often!—the story of how you carried the pipe of the air-pump into the gallery of the Bondavara mine, and how we all thought you were a dead man. Women and children hold their breath while I tell it. I believe I do tell that story well, for they know it by heart, and yet they cannot but listen. They take it in different ways; but this girl, I have noticed her, she covers up her face and cries the whole time."
"And is she a modest girl?"
"To ascertain this point we had to call a jury of married women. They couldn't bring forward a single charge against her. Then we got the girls together, and we pressed them very close, if there was anything with the young men, but they all said—no. And there was no need for them to deny, for a peasant girl is fitly mated with a miner, and if he wants her he can have her."
They had now reached the colliery, and went into the station-house, which stood at the corner of the branch railroad. There was now another line, which ran underground and connected the two collieries. Here Ivan found a great many of the miners. He sent for the rest, and told them work was over for the day. Men and women assembled by degrees, and only one group of girls still remained working. These had agreed not to leave off until they had driven their load of coals to the coal-hill, which lay between the entrance to the quarry gallery and the station-house where Ivan sat waiting. He could not see the girls; he could only hear their clear voices as they called to one another to make haste and get the work finished.