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 maid. “But I was worried, dear brother, about you. I didn’t want you to be alone, and besides we wouldn’t have had enough feed for the horses,” she added.

They put the old equipage back for a rest into the carriage-house, Miss Pepinka laid away her hat in the little room as spotless as when she took it out, disposed of what she had brought with her and distributed the gifts. Bára received a lovely ribbon for her skirt and one for her hair, and from Elška a string of corals for her neck. Elška brought with her some beautiful dresses, but these would not have made her pleasing if she had not brought back with her from Prague her unspoiled good heart. She had not changed.

“Oh, Bára, you’ve grown up so!” was the first thing that Elška wondered at when she had time to talk to Bára and inspect her properly.

Bára had grown a head taller than Elška.

“Oh, Elška, you are just as good as you always were, only so much prettier. If it wouldn’t be a sin, I’d say that you look like the Virgin Mary on our altar.”

“Oh, there—there! What are you talking about,” Elška rebuked her but not at all severely. “You are flattering me.”

“God forbid! I am telling you what my heart says. I can’t get my fill of looking at you,” Bára earnestly insisted.

“Dear Bára, if you’d only go to Prague! There you’d see the lovely girls!”

“More beautiful than you?” marvelled Bára.