"Why should I not be fond of them? I have nourished them both on my bosom. I had a child of my own, but God took him; yet I couldn't love my own child more than I love these?"
"Whose then are they?"
IX.
The woman began to speak, and this is what she said:
"It is now six years ago," said she, "since the parents of these orphans died in one week. They buried the father on the Wednesday, and the mother died on the Friday. These poor little things were without a father for three days, and their mother did not live more than a day after their father died. I lived at that time with my husband in serfdom. We were neighbours; we dwelt side by side. The father of these children was all alone; he worked in the wood. One day they were felling a tree, and it fell right across him; all his inside came out. Scarcely had they brought him home than he gave up his soul to God, but his wife the same week bore these two little children. There was nothing there but poverty and loneliness. The woman was quite alone there; there was neither nurse nor serving wench. Alone she bore them, alone she died.
"I went in the morning to look after my neighbour. I drew near to the hut, and she, poor wretch, was already cold. In her agony she had trampled upon this little girl—she had trampled on this little girl,
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