"No, her mother crushed her."
Matréna broke in,—she wanted to know who the woman was, and whose the children were, and so she said:
"Are you not their mother?"
"I am not their mother, nor their kin, housewife! I am a stranger to them: I have adopted them."
"Not your children! How you care for them!"
"Why should I not care for them? I nursed them with my own breast. I had a child of my own, but God took him away. I did not care for him so much as I have cared for them."
"Whose are they, then?"