The lady had already lifted the cup to her lips, but she set it down again, and as if ashamed, bowed her head too.  A tear appeared on her golden eyelashes.  When the boy had finished eating, she asked him what he had asked Jesus Christ for.  He confessed how much he had desired to see her, and that he almost envied his comrades.  Then he asked permission to look also into the other book which lay on a small table.  It was full of photographs of people.  He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, because about ten of them were pictures of herself, but she was dressed in all kinds of strange costumes.  In one of the pictures she had on a loose dress like a cloak and a crown on her head.  Under the picture was printed, “Mary Slavkovsky as Marie Stuart.”  The boy rested his curly head on his small palms, and thought.

“Why do you look so much at that picture?” said the lady, stroking his golden curls.

“Is this really you in all these pictures?  Have you perhaps played in a theatre?” said Ondrejko.

She was astonished.  “What do you know about theatres?  Have you perhaps been in one of them?”

“No,” he shook his head.  “That could not be possible.  I have not been.”  The boy’s face saddened.

“What do you mean, Ondrejko?” said the lady, drawing him nearer to her.

“Oh, my mother also is pictured in photographs, but I shall never see her again.”

“Your mother?” said she, wonderingly.  “Is she not a country woman?”

“Oh, no!” The eyes of the boy glowed.  “She is a famous singer, but I shall not see her again, because she has forgotten me long ago—­and so I have nobody to look after me, no mother, no father, although I was adjudged to him.  I used to be very sad about it, but since Palko came to us, and I believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and received Him in my heart, I am no more just a forsaken orphan, because He loves me, and He it with me.”  The boy stopped because the lady became very pale, and the arm with which she had caressed him, fell down and a deep sigh escaped her lips.

“Aunty!” cried the scared boy, and not in vain.  Aunty Moravec ran into the room.  She washed the deathly-pale face of the lady with some kind of fine-smelling water.  She placed a cushion under her head and put her feet on the sofa.  After a while, the lady began to breathe better again.  Aunty took the boy by the hand and led him to the kitchen.  At his anxious questioning she told him only that the lady was still very weak and must rest.  Ondrejko repeated to her what they had been speaking about together.  At hearing this, Aunty sighed and caressed him, and said, “It is all in vain.  It had to come and the sooner the better.”  She did not hinder Ondrejko from going home, but did not allow him to carry the crock.

“Send Palko, in the afternoon.  He promised to take the lady to you.  From tomorrow on, she is to come to your sheepfold to drink the whey.  The doctor ordered that.”