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 “How can you talk to me of your brother, when you know that I have Matýsek!” she rebuked him, trembling all over.

“Surely you don’t intend, now that you have property, to tie yourself to that hungry, half-dead mortal who has nothing and never will have, to the day of his death? He was good enough while no one else wanted you.”

You should have seen how Barka flared up! She flushed with anger and every nerve in her body was strained. “The man I wasn’t good enough for before this,” burst violently from her lips, “isn’t good enough for me now. Matýsek has wanted me for years and never cared for another. Even if a bride from Prague had sent for him, he wouldn’t have married her for all of Jerusalem, and you think I’d consider another man now? No, not for seven golden castles, not even if my own patron saint made the match. Indeed, not even for the sake of the Virgin Mary would I forsake him.—That is my vow!”

And Barka became almost ill at the idea of being torn away from Matýsek. When she got breath enough, she set up such a wailing about Matýsek that it could be heard to the village square. She was not to be quieted, and the peasant, though he kept on trying to persuade her in order to provide for his hectoring brother and wicked children, could do nothing with her. He left her in great wrath, seeing at last that she would