“Hush, my brother,” replied Tonyk, “hush, in God’s name! Your words make her cry still harder. Do you not see that she has the years and mien of our own mother, God bless her!”
Then, bending forward and handing his purse to the beggar-woman, “Take it, poor woman,” he said; “I can only help you, but I will pray to God to console you.”
The beggar-woman took the purse, and, kissing it, said to Tonyk:
“Since your lordship has wished to enrich a poor woman, you will not refuse to take from her this nut, which holds a wasp with a diamond sting.”
Tonyk took the nut, thanked the beggar-woman, and went his way with Mylio.
The two soon came to the edge of a wood, where they saw a little child, nearly naked, who was prying about in the hollows of the trees, and singing the while an air sadder than the chants of the Mass for the Dead. Often he stopped to slap his little frozen hands together, saying in a kind of sing-song, “I’m so cold! I’m so cold!” And then they could hear his teeth chatter.
At this sight Tonyk felt like crying, and he said to his brother:
“For pity’s sake, Mylio, do you see how this poor little innocent suffers from the cold?”
“He is a great baby, then,” said Mylio. “I, for my part, do not find the wind so cold.”
“Because you have on a velvet vest, and over that a cloth coat, and over that again your purple cloak, while he is clad only in the air of heaven.”