“But is she not sick?” the boy said, showing some anxiety.

“She is not sick any more, only weak, and this weakness she must overcome by walking,” responded Aunty.

In this world there is no sweetness without bitterness.  If something strange had not happened, that boy would have returned home very proud and happy.  Thus Bacha Filina found him not far away, all in tears, and when he took him into his strong arms like a little lamb, the boy threw both arms around his neck and told him everything.

“Bacha, I have surely said something bad, though I really don’t know what, and she became very sad about it,” cried Ondrejko.

“Do not cry,” the man comforted him.  “You said only what the Lord God put in your mouth.  Anyway, when the lady comes in the afternoon, all will be well again.”

With these words, the Bacha carried the tired boy to his wooden hut, laid him on the bed, and sat beside him.  He stroked his arm and forehead, and before long he had put his little charge to sleep.  Then he looked at him once more, sadly, and left.  About half-an-hour later the herdsmen found him dressed in his Sunday suit going in the direction of the “Old Hag’s Rock.”  They thought he was going to town, and wondered why, because he had been there only yesterday.

At the same time, bitter crying sounded in Palko’s cottage, which Aunty Moravec could in no way silence.  There the weeping lady said, “He was here; he, my beautiful golden-headed child, and I did not know him.  The heavy crock he brought to me himself.  He wanted to see me, but did not recognize me.  How could he, when I myself did not know him?  That his own mother forgot him long ago is not true.  All the glory of the world could not replace my lost treasure.  Oh, my father, my father!  If you only knew what became of your daughter!  You taught her to fold her hands in prayer, but she forgot everything—­even that.  Unfortunate, betrayed wife, craven mother!  If you only knew how your warnings have been literally fulfilled!”

The lady cried bitterly.  There was no comfort for her.  Usually there is none for the son or daughter who has trampled the good advice of his parents under his feet and after that has had to suffer everything which has been foretold them.

Finally Aunty went out.  She heard steps in the hall.  After a while she returned asking if Bacha Filina might enter, that he would like to speak of something important with the lady.

In a moment Bacha was in the room.  “I have come, Madame Slavkovsky, to talk with you,” he began seriously.  “It is time to make an end to the sin, which for years you have already committed as to my little charge.  The doctor told me that you are his mother, and my lord is his father.  Now is this tender, sensitive child to grow up as somebody said:  ’Whether father or mother, whether sister or brother, nobody comes to welcome me’?” The man spoke seriously.