“But you know how to feed it, apparently, “interrupted Cvok, smiling.
“No wonder either! It’s not the first time”
Miss Naninka stopped short suddenly, and grew slightly red. Good-natured Cvok took no notice of this, and looked with pleasure to see with what a good appetite the baby drank.
“Now it has enough,” Naninka began again. “Now it will sleep.” Then she began to hum a lullaby gently.
The priest still stood on the same spot, as if he was rooted to it . He did not once take his eyes off the child. After a while he whispered—
“Is it asleep?”
“It is.”
“Now tell me at last how you came by the baby.”
“How I came by it?”
“Yes; I want to know how it ever got into this clerical house?”
“How else—but by God’s providence!”
“But what on earth are we to do with it? We two have little enough to live upon, not to mention another.”
“As the good God has entrusted us with the care of this little immortal creature, we won’t begin to calculate first what we are to do with it.”
Cvok felt his eyes grow moist. He patted Naninka’s bony arm and said heartily, “Bravo, Naninka; your words are like gold! We’ll give care to the winds, like the puffs of smoke from a pipe! I’ll gladly eat a little less every day that the child may have its fill, and sleep as beautifully as it does now. Look how it smiles and sometimes half opens its little eyes!”
“That is because its guardian angel is whispering to
