Free Fire in the Steppe by Henryk Sienkiewicz, Jeremiah Curtin Page B

among polite people; put away your 'God knows.' O Thou Great God! this alone is lacking, Basia, that you should cry, 'May the bullets strike me!'"
    The maiden burst out into fresh laughter, resonant as silver, and cried, "Well, then, auntie, may the bullets strike me!"
    "O my God, the ears are withering on me! Beg pardon of the whole company!" cried the lady.
    Then Basia, wishing to begin with her aunt, sprang up from her place, but at the same time dropped the knife and the spoons under the table, and then dived down after them herself.
    The plump little lady could restrain her laughter no longer; and she had a wonderful laugh, for first she began to shake and tremble, and then to squeak in a thin voice. All had grown joyous. Zagloba was in raptures. "You see what a time I have with this maiden," said Pani Makovetski.
    "She is a pure delight, as God is dear to me!" exclaimed Zagloba.
    Meanwhile Basia had crept out from under the table; she had found the spoons and the knife, but had lost her net, for her hair was falling into her eyes altogether. She straightened herself, and said, her nostrils quivering meanwhile, "Aha, lords and ladies, you are laughing at my confusion. Very well!"
    "No one is laughing," said Zagloba, in a tone of conviction, "no one is laughing,—no one is laughing! We are only rejoicing that the Lord God has given us delight in the person of your ladyship."
    After supper they passed into the drawing-room. There Panna Krysia, seeing a lute on the wall, took it down and began to run over the strings. Pan Michael begged her to sing.
    "I am ready, if I can drive sadness from your soul."
    "I thank you," answered the little knight, raising his eyes to her in gratitude.
    After a while this song was heard:—

"O knights, believe me,
Useless is armor;
Shields give no service;
Cupid's keen arrows,
Through steel and iron,
Go to all hearts."
     
    "I do not indeed know how to thank you," said Zagloba, sitting at a distance with Pan Michael's sister, and kissing her hands, "for coming yourself and bringing with you such elegant maidens that the Graces themselves might heat stoves for them. Especially does that little haiduk please my heart, for such a rogue drives away sorrow in such fashion that a weasel could not hunt mice better. In truth, what is grief unless mice gnawing the grains of joyousness placed in our hearts? You, my benefactress, should know that our late king, Yan Kazimir, was so fond of my comparisons that he could not live a day without them. I had to arrange for him proverbs and wise maxims. He used to have these repeated to him before bed-time, and by them it was that he directed his policy. But that is another matter. I hope too that our Michael, in company with these delightful girls, will forget altogether his unhappy misfortune. You do not know that it is only a week since I dragged him out of the cloister, where he wished to make vows; but I won the intervention of the nuncio himself, who declared to the prior that he would make a dragoon of every monk in the cloister if he did not let Michael out straightway. There was no reason for him to be there. Praise be to God! Praise be to God! If not to-day, to-morrow some one of those two will strike such sparks out of him that his heart will be burning like punk."
    Meanwhile Krysia sang on:—
    "If shields cannot save
From darts a strong hero,
How can a fair head
Guard her own weakness?
Where can she hide!"
     
    "The fair heads have as much fear of those shafts as a dog has of meat," whispered Zagloba to Pan Michael's sister. "But confess, my benefactress, that you did not bring these titmice here without secret designs. They are maidens in a hundred!—especially that little haiduk. Would that I were as blooming as she! Ah, Michael has a cunning sister."
    Pani Makovetski put on a very artful look, which did not, however, become her honest, simple face in the least, and said, "I thought of this and that, as is usual with us; shrewdness is not