Page:Magdalen by J S Machar.pdf/108

 out falls among them! They run around wildly and inquisitively, neglecting their daily toil; their feelers are in a convulsive tremor; they are curious; they congregate and discuss matters; the more courageous rush upon that object, and investigate it from all sides, touch it, and again run away to take counsel, their little heads shaking all the time.

The news ran like lightning through the town: Jiří had arrived with his aunt, and they had brought with them a strange young lady. Who was she? Who was she? She was not of the family, for in the town they knew well the genealogies of all its members; so there flew over the city fantastic stories, guesses, anecdotes, which those who concocted them could not themselves believe.

There was not a window in the whole town, where, if the ladies passed by, a head with its critical pair of eyes did not appear. Whoever met them in the street, on the common, or in the castle park, stopped and