Page:The grandmother; a story of country life in Bohemia.pdf/103

Rh and raised my head. What was I to do? I had to open my eyes. O my dear Godmother, those eyes of his shone upon me like God's dear sun! I covered my face with my hands, but when he began to speak, I could not withstand the charm of his voice. Oh you were right when you said he could bewitch one with his voice; his words ring in my ears even yet. He said that he loved me, that I was his bliss, his heaven!"

"What wicked words! one can see that they are the snares of the Evil One! Unhappy girl, what were you thinking of that you believed him!" lamented the blacksmith's wife.

"Heavens! how could I doubt him, when he told me that he loved me?"

"Told you! what does that amount to?—all fraud and deception. He wants to deprive you of your reason."

"That is what I told him; but he protested on his soul's salvation that he loved me from the first time that he had seen me, and that he refrained from speaking with me and telling me so, because he did not want to bind me to his own unhappy fate, that followed him every where, never allowing him to enjoy any happiness. Oh, I do not remember what all he said, but it was enough to make one weep. I believed everything, I told him that I had been afraid of him, that out of fear I had become a bride, that I wore on my heart an amulet; and when he asked for it, I gave it to him," said Victorka.

"O my blessed Savior," lamented the woman," she gives him the consecrated amulet, she gives him a thing warmed on her body! Now you are in his