o another.)

The mourners had hardly recovered from the large quantities of brandy
they had imbibed in order to drown their sorrow, when they had to dig a
new grave; for Janos Sranko had followed Mrs. Gongoly. In olden times
they had been good friends, before Mrs. Gongoly was engaged; and now it
seemed as though they had arranged their departure from this world to
take place at the same time.

They found Sranko dead in his bed, the morning after the funeral; he had
died of an apoplectic fit. Sranko was a well-to-do man, in fact a
"magna." (The fifteen richest peasants in a Slovak village are called
"magnas" or "magnates.") He had three hundred sheep grazing in his
meadows and several acres of ploughed land, so he ought to have a grand
funeral too. And Mrs. Sranko was not idle, for she went herself to the
schoolmaster, and then to the priest, and said she wished everything to
be as it had been at Mrs. Gongoly's funeral. Let it cost what it might,
but the Srankos were not less than the Gongolys. She wished two priests
to read the funeral service, and four choir-boys to attend in their best
black cassocks, the bell was to toll all the time, and so on, and so on.
Father Janos nodded his head.

"Very well, all shall be as you wish," he said, and then proceeded to
reckon out what it would cost.

"That's all right," said Mrs. Sranko, "but please, your reverence, put
the red thing in too, and let us see how much more it will cost."

"What red thing?"

"Why, what you held over your head at Mrs. Gongoly's funeral. Oh, it
_was_ lovely!"

The young priest could not help smiling.

"But that is impossible," he said.

Mrs. Sranko jumped up, and planted herself before him, with her arms
crossed.

"And why is it impossible I should like to know? My money is as good as
the Gongolys', isn't it?"

"But, my dear Mrs. Sranko, it was raining then, and to-morrow we shall
in all probability have splendid weather."

But it was no use arguing with the good woman, for she spoke the dialect
of the country better than Father Janos did.

"Raining, was it?" she exclaimed. "Well, all the more reason you should
bring it with you to-morrow, your honor; at all events it won't get wet.
And, after all, my poor dear husband was worthy of it; he was no worse
than Mrs. Gongoly. Every one honored him, and he did a lot for the
Church; why, it was he who five years ago sent for those lovely colored
candles we have on the altar; they came all the