"Sure, I will," replied the lad, who had already mastered in the school of the streets the intricacies of the Canadian vernacular.
"I wish I could come and listen."
"It is no place for little girls," said Kalman brusquely; then noting the shadow upon the face of the child, he added, "Perhaps you can come to the back window and Irma will let you in."
"I'll be sure to come," said Elizabeth to herself, for Kalman was off again like the wind.
Paulina's house was overflowing with riotous festivity. Avoiding the front door, Kalman ran to the back of the house, and making entrance through the window, there waited for his sister. Soon she came in.
"Oh, Kalman!" she cried, throwing her arms about him and kissing him, "such a feast as I have saved for you! And you are cold. Your poor fingers are frozen."
"Not a bit of it, Irma," said the boy—they always spoke in Russian, these two, ever since the departure of their father—"but I am hungry, oh! so hungry!"
Already Irma was flying about the room, drawing from holes and corners the bits she had saved from the feast for her brother. She spread them on the bed before him.
"But first," she cried, "I shall bring to the window the hot stew. Paulina," the children always so spoke of her, "has kept it hot for you," and she darted through the door.
After what seemed to Kalman a very long time indeed, she appeared at the window with a covered dish of steaming stew.