Page:The grandmother; a story of country life in Bohemia.pdf/299

Rh ing, thought of nothing, except what they should do without the help of their industrious boys, who had been as their right hands; how they should miss them, and how they were to live without them for fourteen long years!—Grandmother sat down with the children in the orchard.

After a while Christina came out, haggard, with swollen eyes, and pale as a sheet. She wanted to speak; but a stone lay upon her breast, and her throat was drawn together so that she could not utter a word. She leaned against the branch of a blossoming apple tree. It was the same tree over which on St. John's eve she had thrown her wreath. The wreath had fallen on the other side, and now, when her fondest hopes should have been realized, she must part with her lover. She covered her face with her white apron and began to weep aloud. Grandmother did not try to stop her. Milo came. What had become of that ruddy face, those bright eyes? He seemed to be carved out of marble. Without a word he gave his hand to Grandmother, embraced the girl so dear to him, and drawing from his pocket an embroidered handkerchief, which every girl works for the youth she loves, wiped away the tears from her cheeks. They did not say to each other how deep was their grief, but when a stanza of the well-known song resounded from the inn:

Christina threw her arms around her lover and, sobbing violently, hid her face upon his bosom.