"For me?" and the boy's beautiful eyes opened wide. "She cannot come for me any more, because I do not belong to her, but to father."
"And what did the lady where you lived formerly tell you about her?"
"That she left father and me because she loved the theatre more than us, and because sometimes the people hitched themselves to wagons instead of horses, and gave her beautiful jewels."
"And you believed it?" retorted Palko, with clouded face.
"No, I did not believe it, because I loved her, loved her very much."
"You are right; don't you believe it. Bacha Filina told me that she went away because your father's family did not like her because she was not of noble birth as themselves. But she went to the theatre only because she could not make her living otherwise. Your father brought her from a very great distance to which she could not return. What could she do? What the theatre is, I do not know. Only that she sang there beautifully. Perhaps that would not have been so bad if she had known the Lord Jesus as we know Him. He would surely have advised and helped her otherwise, and if that which she did was wrong, when she once knows Jesus and asks Him to forgive her, He will do so. But we must tell her about Him, you and I."
"We? But she is far away, very far."
"Do not believe it, Ondrejko. The Lord Jesus sent her back as far as here. The lady at our cottage—that is she."
"You say that is she?" Ondrejko jumped up.
"Yes, yes; that is she."