Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/202

 This put an end to the lessons. The children with one voice expressed their delight in the Prokop valley and so Vojtech said to them, “I will let you off the rest.”

When Vojtech returned through the company, he no longer wore an injured look. He carried himself almost gaily, and when he reached home he laughed and could not say why.

Then these words stole into his mind: “Lidunka had visitors, she quitted them, and came to see me. It is a pity that I am no longer teaching her that I might requite her for it. Lidunka is a good child, a good child.”

Then he snapped his fingers and said almost out loud, “We shall go out walking together. She is a good, worthy child.”

That day it rained, the next day was beautiful, and the day after that the whole world smiled and sparkled.

Above Prague uprose the sun, lighting up its hundred towers which gleamed as fair as a maiden before her mirror. Crows and daws wheeled around the towers like her raven tresses around her head. The early life of morning babbled with a hundred voices, but not in its full might, for a good half of Prague was still in the land of dreams.

The Horska family with Pan Vojtech issued from the city at an early hour. The citizen feels the beauty of early morning in the country almost gratefully, and if I may so put it, like a greedy man, for he has to go in search for it. To-day it seemed to Vojtech as though early morning was more beautiful than ever. The grass sparkled with dew, and flashed in one’s eyes. Vojtech going with the little boy in advance, looked back at Pani Horska with whom Lidunka and her little sister were walking to see whether Nature smiled also on them. No doubt it did; they frequently paused, and here Lidunka tripped into the field, here over a meadow, and soon had in her hands a posy of wild flowers. Then she grew tired of them, threw them away and gathered fresh ones.

The corn land quivered with light and the sky-larks soared away higher and higher one after the other there to disperse themselves in a shower of song.

Vojtech began to frolic with the boy. They ran races, then they chased one another, then they waited until the female detachment overtook them. Even the little sister joined them, and all three ran races. Once the little sister cried out, “Oh! Lidunka, you come too and run races with us, we shall be there the sooner. And Lidunka only smiled and did not answer. Even that smile