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 first little stars sparkled forth. They smiled at the mountains, rejoicing with them that soon they would be green and glad when the fir groves and the blue violets would pour forth their fragrance, when they would hear the nightingale sing beside the stream, when from every rock a flower would spring and in every furrow the lark would call. Even the stars are sad when they see nothing but snow, frost and ice.

Barka’s eyes grew misty and great tears dropped on her clasped hands. For her, spring had come for the last time. But instantly her thoughts returned to Matýsek.

“He need not stay here alone. Now that he has a house, any good and capable woman would marry him. It would be best, perhaps, if I myself would select someone for him. It’s a pity, he does not like our tenant. She would never do him any injury.”

Just then a young woman, a neighbor, came running into the orchard. She was returning a hatchet which she had borrowed of Matýsek and began joking with him.

“When are you going to get a divorce from your wife so you can marry me?” she laughed. It was the way all the girls talked with him when they met him alone.

Matýsek imagined that each one was in earnest about it. “You’d like to marry me, wouldn’t you?” He preened himself, seeming to become a head taller. “I believe it. Others would, too. I have to defend