Page:The grandmother; a story of country life in Bohemia.pdf/331

Rh brought from home. The boys carried consecrated pictures, which Grandmother had brought them from the Svatonovitz shrine; Grandmother had a rosary, and Manchinka, also, some pictures.

"Who would have thought that we were to have a funeral?" said the gamekeeper's wife, meeting them at the door.

"We are all here for a time; we arise in the morning, but know not what the day will bring to us," replied Grandmother. The fawn came and pushed her head against Adelka's lap and the boys and dogs surrounded the new comers.

"Where have you laid her out?" asked Grandmother, entering the hall.

"In the garden house," replied the gamekeeper's wife, taking Nannie by the hand and leading the guests into the garden.

The garden house,—or rather a sort of arbor,—was lined inside with evergreens. In the middle of the room upon a bier of rough birch wood stood a plain coffin; in it lay Victorka. The gamekeeper's wife had dressed her in a white shroud. Her forehead was covered with a wreath of wild pinks, and her head rested upon a pillow of moss. Her hands were folded upon her breast as she was wont to carry them when she was alive. The coffin and the cover were trimmed with evergreens, a lamp burned at her head, and at her feet was a small vase with holy water, in which was a sprinkling brush made of ears of rye. The gamekeeper's wife had done everything, seen to everything herself; many times a day she had been in the little arbor, so that the sight had become familiar to her; but Grandmother stepped to the coffin, made the