Francisku

Francisku was a boy of bronze. His hair, his face, his clothes, his bare feet, everything was bronze. When he stepped over to the deeply shaded pool and bent down to fill his huge watering can he looked like a beautiful animated statuette. And the three little baronesses held their breath for fear he might slip into the mysterious depths and disappear from them forever. . . .

The three little baronesses also looked like statuettes — like statuettes of delicately tinted ivory, inlaid with gold. On their long, slender, half-bare legs they meandered through the flower-beds, among tall-stemmed nod- ding blossoms of scarlet and coral and amethyst, while their eyes were on the boy of bronze.

“Que faites-vous, mesdemoiselles?” sharply inquired the “bonne” from the summer house.

“Nous cueillons des fleurs ——” answered the innocent voices; slim white fingers gathered them up, while their slender, aristocratic legs carried them nearer and nearer to Francisku. His darkly flushing face and bash- fully glowing eyes, his agile body and pantherlike movements sent strange thrills through the ivory and gold baronesses. If only they dared! They would like to come still closer, quite close, to touch his brown hands, his wild curls, perhaps to put their lips against his ——

On the sunny lawn two huge St. Leonbergers lay dozing. Like maenads the three little girls descended upon them, burying their nervous fingers in the great, shaggy, tawny manes, rolling over their playmates, teasing, frolicking, romping, laughing — laughing ——

This is an unjust world. He who sows is not always he who reaps.

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