playing to them until the last
the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and
their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when
they closed their eyes in death.

And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his
life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the
gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played
close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad
melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus:

"A Maros vize folyik csendesen!"

"The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--"

and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to
another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too
sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft
sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in
check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face.

She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to
Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. Bela had
practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to
show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion.
She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's
thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been
turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost
than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her
and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little
enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll.

Something of the respect which Eros Bela demanded as his own right
encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have
vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_"
(honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge,
which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry,
caused her almost as much sadness as Bela's indifference towards her. It
seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after
to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and
again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her.

The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and
grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books,
presented now a very