Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/98

 for her and loved her as tenderly as any mother. Now she is orphaned, and so are we.’

Lukas reeled and had to hold on to the fence.

‘Then the mistress is gone?’ he repeated dully several times. He could not believe that what he had heard was the truth.

‘Of course she is gone! How should she not have gone?’ the girl reproached him bitterly. ‘Any girl would have gone after you had danced under her window with three women. Oh, why must you go and raise a scandal like that? We knew quite well that what she did was not bad. We have got our eyes and ears too, and cannot help noticing things. Such a thoroughly good girl, and now shortly before her wedding she has to go among strangers, perhaps even to Germany! Yes, I am sure she must have gone into Germany. Where else could she have gone? She had to leave the country; in our country people would laugh her to scorn.’

It was said of Lukas that he had no other fault than his bad temper; apart from that he was the kindest, mildest, and. most benevolent of men, who would not hurt a creature. He now showed that people had judged him fairly. He not only took the reproaches of his own servant quite meekly,