Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/24

 her hands clasped and herself sunk to earth, and when having her eyes full of salt tears and fixed on the vague distance, like an actor in his part, she confirmed even by the expression of her countenance the signature over which was written, “Ah! I am but a poor orphan girl.”

As she sat thus plunged in her childish grief, Venik silently approached her, squatted himself beside her, and after a few moments said, “Krista, how does it feel to be an orphan.”

He said it with all the sympathy of which, at his age, he was capable. He said it as if he would have told her, “Tell me how it feels and I will share it with you.”

“How does it feel?” said Krista, in reply to his question. “When I have only you, and you drive me from you, how can I be anything but an orphan?” and her eyes still moist with weeping turned from the vague distance to him, and were full of mute reproach

“Nay, I do not drive you from me, but I want you to go to school, and to school you must go, for you are not twelve years old like me,” said Venik.

“I dont want to go to school any more,” retorted Krista, “I like to be here on the hill side, and stay here I will.”

“And where will you learn to sing?” asked Venik as a last resource.

“With you,” said Krista, and this quite beat Venik what to say next.