among all sorts of articles, including a pile of hay towering above her, was wholly invisible. But the peasants recognized the equipage, their fathers, too, had known it, and they used to say among themselves that that carriage remembered Žižka.
No one more ardently looked forward to Elška’s arrival than Bára. No one thought so fervently of her, no one spoke of her oftener. When she had no one to talk with she conversed with Lišaj and promised him good times when Elška would return and asked him if he, too, did not yearn for her. Miss Pepinka and the good priest knew how much Bára loved Elška and they liked her the more for it. Once when Miss Pepinka had been slightly ill, and Bára with greatest willingness was waiting on her, she became so convinced of the girl’s loyalty and good heart that she often called her in afterwards to help her. At last she reposed so much faith in her that she entrusted to her care the key to the larder, which in Miss Pepinka’s own eyes was the highest evidence of favor. That is why she put the whole household into Bára’s hands, on her departure, at which all the housekeepers in the village wondered greatly. Pepinka’s mark of preference aroused greater antipathy than ever in the sexton’s wife against Bára. The gossips said immediately “See, such good-for-nothings have luck from hell. She has nested herself securely at the parsonage.” By which they meant Bára. Prejudice against the girl had not died out. She herself did not worry
