To-morrow the Woivode and the Staroste are going away, in order to prepare the Sulgostow house for its new mistress.
During more than a week I have not opened my diary, for we are very busy. The afternoons and evenings are spent with our guests, and the mornings are given to work, as each sister wishes to make something with her own hands for Basia's trousseau. I am embroidering a dishabille with flowers in lace-stitch, and I have to get up very early in the morning and work even by candle-light in order to be ready in season. Mary is making a very pretty scarf; it will have an arabesque embroidered on fine muslin in dark silks and gold; Kasia is knitting a cover for the dressing table; so all the lessons are put aside, and even Madame de Beaumont is forgotten.
From the early morning, my honored Mother is busy, unlocking the trunks, the drawers, and the cupboards,--taking out linen, silks, furs, carpets, rugs, curtains, etc. She has many things still remaining from her own trousseau, and many others bought later, as during all these years she has been gathering all kinds of beautiful things for our marriage outfits; really they are well worth seeing. Sometimes she deigns to call me to assist her, and it is quite touching to see her anxiety to do right by each of us; she divides all these treasures in four portions, and sometimes she even asks my honored Father and the chaplain to give their opinion whether the shares are quite of equal value.
A tailor and a furrier have come from Warsaw, and there is so much to be done that they will not have finished for a month. Fortunately, almost all the linen is ready, our sewing-girls having worked upon it for these last two years, and now they are marking it with blue cotton.
Basia wonders what she will do with all the new dresses they are making for her; until now we had never more than four at the same time, two dark woollen ones for every day, and two white ones, one in cotton for Sundays, another in batiste for great occasions. But my honored Mother says that what is good enough for a young girl would not be proper for a married lady.
Basia has wound the tangled silk with such patience that, although green, it has not in the least changed its color; even Matenko acknowledges that she is fit to be married. She is now knitting from that silk a purse for the Staroste by my honored Mother's direction.