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 her and many a young man thought, “For you I’d serve even twice seven years if I knew I’d surely get you.”

Whenever Elška was in church she was always devout and never looked about her and this time she was the same. But when she went from the church through the village she turned in all directions, greeting the villagers who crowded to her to welcome her home from Prague, inquired how each had been during her absence and answering their many questions. Many things had changed in those three years, although it hardly seemed so to the villagers. Here and there some aged man or old grandmother whom Elška had been accustomed to seeing on Sundays sitting on the high walk around their houses or in the orchard, warming themselves in the sun, was no more. In the circle of young people many a pair was missing, looking after their own newly established housekeeping. Children rolled in the grass whom Elška did not know. Many a head which had been gray was now white and the girls of Elška’s own age were now being escorted by youths and were no longer regarded as children. And, too, no one addressed her now as “Elška,” but all added to her name, “Maiden.”

When Elška heard herself so addressed her cheeks flushed red. By this prefix the simple villagers expressed what she herself was scarcely conscious of—that she was no more a child. In Prague they had called her “the little miss” and later “miss.” At