FRIENDS 129 



Mekolka, his son, unmarried. 

 Ustynia, -1 



Anka, I daughters. 



Tierrtso or Zornka, J 

 Katrina, his daughter-in-law. 

 Niab-kutni, her little girl. 

 Wanka, her little boy. 

 A baby. 



I have given you all the dramatis persona, just as 

 they were introduced, or rather explained to us by Uano, 

 except the three last who did not come out of the skins. 

 This was pretty well for a circular room about fifteen 

 feet across. 



While the goose was cooking we had time to consider 

 our entertainers more carefully. There was a touch — 

 but not more — of Mongol in all their faces, more marked 

 in the women than in the men. They had high cheek- 

 bones and a tendency to slit-like eyes, and their eye- 

 brows were beautifully arched. 



Uano had a short grizzled moustache and beard, 

 and a world of shrewdness in his eyes, which were 

 redeemed from cunning by a kindly twinkle. His wife 

 Ustynia, whose old face was as yellow as his, was 

 not ugly. Just a homely, kind-looking old woman who 

 would have made a respectable cottager on any English 

 estate. 



Katrina was almost pretty ; indeed when first she 

 married she must have been a pretty girl. Her eyes 

 were dark, she had a pretty colour in her cheeks, and 



