The girls were wrapped up in pelisses, but for all that they felt the cold.
“I say, Prascovia! the frost’s skinning me alive. Well, if our bridegroom[281] doesn’t come quick, we shall be frozen to death here!”
“Don’t go talking nonsense, Mashka; as if suitors[282] generally turned up in the forenoon. Why it’s hardly dinner-time yet!”
“But I say, Prascovia! if only one comes, which of us will he take?”
“Not you, you stupid goose!”
“Then it will be you, I suppose!”
“Of course it will be me!”
“You, indeed! there now, have done talking stuff and treating people like fools!”
Meanwhile, Frost had numbed the girl’s hands, so our damsels folded them under their dress, and then went on quarrelling as before.
“What, you fright! you sleepy-face! you abominable shrew! why, you don’t know so much as how to begin weaving: and as to going on with it, you haven’t an idea!”