weary of the worry of it, as you can see, and should like
the care of it to repose on younger shoulders. You shall conduct the
concern instead of me, and we'll share the profits. Don't you admire my
cunning? I want to have an income without any labour."

"I can go on as before; there's no necessity for us to go shares."

"But suppose I wish it? Look now! I have no son, and you are just the
son I should like to have had."

Alexander gently raised the old man's hand to his lips, which he placed
on his head, as if by way of blessing.

"And then," continued the master, "how nice it will be if you bring a
wife home, and I have the joy of a happy domestic life which I have
never had yet!"

Alexander sighed. "We shall have to live a long time before we get to
that," said he.

"What? Do you want to remain wifeless all your days? Come, don't pull
such a holy mug as that! Would you keep your secrets from me, when you
know I can see through you as if you were a glass of water? Do you think
I don't know whom you love? Speak out! don't be such a coward! Tell the
girl you love her, and cannot do without her. Or perhaps you would like
me to woo her for you? I shouldn't mind that, I am sure; I should like
to be your best man. Well, and now I'll go and ask the girl to have you,
and to-morrow you shall have her, and we'll have such a betrothal that
the very angels shall dance for joy."

Alexander never said a word; but he cast down his eyes, turned pale,
pressed Master Boltay's hand in silence, and then quitted the room.

So long as the lad had been with him, Boltay was all radiant and jocose,
but when he had departed, a couple of tears trickled from the old man's
eyes. He himself suspected and feared that Alexander loved in vain.

Boltay thought the matter over for some time, and then resolved to first
of all ask for Fanny's hand for Alexander--perhaps the girl might still
have some kindly feeling for him. If she rejected the proposal, and
declared she did not care for the youth at all, he would lay the second
offer before her. What would she say to that? Could she possibly be
amiable to an old fellow of over seventy, after coldly shutting her
heart against a handsome young man?

So the same day Boltay rode out to his country den, which was situated
in a romantic little valley in the Carpathians, to pay his ward a visit.

Fanny rushed out to meet Boltay's waggon when he was still a long way
off, dragged him down from the coa