always!

When he saw that I was blushing, he turned obstinately toward
Balnokhazy, to reply for me.

But I was not the only one who read his thoughts in his eyes; another
also read therein, and before he could have spoken, my beautiful aunt
took the words out of his mouth, and with lofty dignity replied to her
husband:

"Methinks the baker is just as good a man as the privy councillor."

I shivered at the bold statement. I imagined that for these words the
whole company would be arrested and thrown into prison.

Balnokhazy, with smiling tenderness, bent down to his wife's hand and,
kissing it, said:

"As a man, truly, just as good a man; but as a baker, a better baker
than I."

Now it was Lorand's turn to crimson. He riveted his eyes upon my aunt's
face.

My right honorable uncle hastened immediately to close the rencontre
with a vanquishing kiss upon my aunt's snow-white hand, a fact which
convinced me that their mutual love was endless. In general, I behaved
with remarkable respect toward that great relation of ours, who lived in
such beautiful apartments, and whose titles would not be contained in
three lines.

I was completely persuaded that Balnokhazy, my uncle, had few superiors
in celebrity in the world, for personal beauty (except, perhaps, my
brother Lorand) none; his wife was the most beautiful and happiest woman
under the sun; and my cousin Melanie such an angel that, if she did not
raise me up to heaven, I should surely never reach those climes.

And if some one had said to me then, "Let us begin at the beginning;
that rich hair on Balnokhazy's head is but a wig," I should have
demanded pardon for interrupting: I can find nothing of the least
importance to say against the wearing of wigs. They are worn by those
who have need of them; by those whose heads would be cold without them,
who catch rheumatism easily with uncovered head. Finally, it is nought
else but a head-covering for one of aesthetic tastes; a cap made of hair.

This is all true, all earnest truth; and yet I was greatly embittered
against that some one who discovered to me for the first time that my
uncle Balnokhazy wore a wig, and painted his moustache (with some
colored unguent, of course, nothing else). And I am still the enemy of
that some one who repeated that before me. He might have left me in
happy ignorance.

Even if some one had said that this showy wealth, which indicated a
noble affluence, was also such a mere wig as