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 “My dear, dear good friend!” cried Jenny, holding Pepíc̓ek in her left arm, and shaking Father Cvok’s hand with the right. “My dear, dear good Miss Naninka! How can I thank you enough? how can I ever show my gratitude? My sweet, darling baby! Ah, what have I not suffered for you? And you are alive, well, merry, and beautiful. Oh, my God! my God!”

At last her eyes dwelt for a second on the baron. “And you have come too, sir baron?” she said, subduing her voice, and evidently summoning up all her strength to enable her to keep quiet.

The baron opened both his arms for her, and cried with a voice in which all his heart went out to her, “Oh, Jenny, can you wonder at that?”

Jenny’s eyes fell to the ground for a while; then she said calmly, “You are welcome also.”

After that she turned to the gentleman who had accompanied her, and said, “I must introduce the gentlemen to each other. The Baron Poc̓ernický, of Poc̓ernic, known to you from what I have told you, and Mr. Doubek, merchant, my future husband.”

“Jenny!” the baron cried, almost beside himself—“Jenny! what are you doing? You do not know what you are saying. By the eternal stars of heaven, no one but myself can be your husband! God Himself cannot suffer it to be otherwise!”

Jenny retired a few steps nearer to Doubek, and took his hand, as if seeking for support from him.

“God knows,” said Mr. Doubek, in a voice so deep and calm that it went straight to the listener’s heart—“God knows I would like to bring down the sky, if I could, were it necessary to your happiness. Your happiness is mine. And even if my heart bleeds, I dissolve the bond of