Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/168

 in vain, in vain! And her last dying groan would be wrung from her by the pain that her little heart could not break at her mother’s breast.

Ivan Hron’s eyes grew dim at this thought, and as though their thoughts had met, he heard a deep sigh which rose from his wife’s bosom.

He took her hand. ‘You are looking at that poor child, Magda, you are sorry for her ’

His wife did not answer; her eyes looked into vacancy, her eyelids trembled.

‘Yet how happy this child is, all the same,’ Ivan continued almost in a whisper. ‘She is carefully nursed, her mother watches her like a guardian angel.’

Two large tears ran down Magdalena’s cheeks; she had not the courage to look at her husband.

‘Listen, Magda,’ sald Ivan, taking her hand, ‘it has long been my intention to tell you something; there are so many orphans who do not belong to a soul in this world, who are in want of what they most need, and do not know what it means to be really loved and cared for. And as we ourselves have not been so fortunate as to have a family of our own, and we have no children to consider,