“Isn’t that devilish cunning?” he exclaimed.  “Ah!  Is there any creature slyer than womenkind?”

“Ah, you long-skirted devil!” hissed his wife, frowning with vexation.  “You wait a bit!”

And settling herself more comfortably, she stared at the postman again.

It did not matter to her that his face was covered.  She was not so much interested in his face as in his whole appearance, in the novelty of this man.  His chest was broad and powerful, his hands were slender and well formed, and his graceful, muscular legs were much comelier than Savely’s stumps.  There could be no comparison, in fact.

“Though I am a long-skirted devil,” Savely said after a brief interval, “they’ve no business to sleep here....  It’s government work; we shall have to answer for keeping them.  If you carry the letters, carry them, you can’t go to sleep....  Hey! you!” Savely shouted into the outer room.  “You, driver.  What’s your name?  Shall I show you the way?  Get up; postmen mustn’t sleep!”

And Savely, thoroughly roused, ran up to the postman and tugged him by the sleeve.

“Hey, your honour, if you must go, go; and if you don’t, it’s not the thing....  Sleeping won’t do.”

The postman jumped up, sat down, looked with blank eyes round the hut, and lay down again.

“But when are you going?” Savely pattered away.  “That’s what the post is for—­to get there in good time, do you hear?  I’ll take you.”

The postman opened his eyes.  Warmed and relaxed by his first sweet sleep, and not yet quite awake, he saw as through a mist the white neck and the immovable, alluring eyes of the sexton’s wife.  He closed his eyes and smiled as though he had been dreaming it all.

“Come, how can you go in such weather!” he heard a soft feminine voice; “you ought to have a sound sleep and it would do you good!”

“And what about the post?” said Savely anxiously.  “Who’s going to take the post?  Are you going to take it, pray, you?”

The postman opened his eyes again, looked at the play of the dimples on Raissa’s face, remembered where he was, and understood Savely.  The thought that he had to go out into the cold darkness sent a chill shudder all down him, and he winced.

“I might sleep another five minutes,” he said, yawning.  “I shall be late, anyway....”

“We might be just in time,” came a voice from the outer room.  “All days are not alike; the train may be late for a bit of luck.”

The postman got up, and stretching lazily began putting on his coat.

Savely positively neighed with delight when he saw his visitors were getting ready to go.

“Give us a hand,” the driver shouted to him as he lifted up a mail-bag.

The sexton ran out and helped him drag the post-bags into the yard.  The postman began undoing the knot in his hood.  The sexton’s wife gazed into his eyes, and seemed trying to look right into his soul.