“You’d better have a chat with the young fellow.”

“I’ll only go and put up my horse and then Nazarka and I will come back; we’ll make merry all night,” said Lukashka, touching his horse with his whip and riding away from the girls.

Turning into a side street, he and Nazarka rode up to two huts that stood side by side.

“Here we are all right, old fellow! Be quick and come soon!” called Lukashka to his comrade, dismounting in front of one of the huts; then he carefully led his horse in at the gate of the wattle fence of his own home.

“How d’you do, Stepka?” he said to his dumb sister, who, smartly dressed like the others, came in from the street to