lady did not like to see handsome people about her. Besides, in this case she must be on her guard and very careful with regard to Baron Mundy; for such a poverty stricken person with a pretty face is able sometimes, with her abominable artfulness, to turn young aristocratic heads! And there have been cases where very nasty disagreeables have arisen in noble families from such intrigues. So it is well to be cautious in time.
Still, after all, when everything had been taken into consideration, there seemed nothing for it but to write for Jenny Kuc̓erová to Prague, because the Baroness Sály could not in any decency be left longer without a companion. So the third day after this a letter went from Labutín, and in three days more a satisfactory answer arrived from Prague. For the same salary as she had received in the merchant’s family, Jenny Kuc̓erová accepted the situation of companion and lady’s-maid to the Baroness Salomena Poc̓ernická of Poc̓ernic and Labutín. The same evening the old baroness formally announced this event at table, not forgetting to add that the “young person” was only coming to begin with for a month’s trial.
Baroness Sály pretended to look pleased, and thanked her lady-mother politely for the constant care she was devoting to her; but the young baron only gave a careless yawn, because he remarked that his mother’s hawk-like eye was fastened on him, to see how he would receive the announcement about the new companion.
That was on a Friday. The next Sunday towards noon, the baroness’s confidential lacquey, the sly cunning Ferdinand, brought Jenny Kuc̓erová in a carriage to Labutín. After a little while he entered the baroness’s writing-room to report about his expedition. Baroness
