t and full trousers with fringed,
embroidered ends, the leather waistcoat and broad belt covered with
metal bosses and wrought with bright-coloured woollen threads. They get
very excited in the mazes of the dance, they shout to the gipsies to
play faster and ever faster; each holds his partner tightly round the
slim waist and swings her round and round, till she stumbles, giddy and
almost faint in his arms.

And round the dancers in a semicircle the spectators stand in a dense
crowd--the older folk and the girls who have not secured partners--they
watch and watch, indefatigable like the dancers, untiring like the
musicians. And behind this semicircle, in the dark corners of the barn,
the children foot it too, with the same ardour, the same excitement as
their elders.

The last csardas of this memorable night! It is eight o'clock now, and
through the apertures in the log wall the brilliant light of this late
summer's morning enters triumphant and crude.

Andor is dancing with Elsa--pretty, fair-haired Elsa, the daughter of
old Kapus Benko,[1] an old reprobate, if ever there was one. Such a
handsome couple they look. Is it not a shame that Andor must go
to-day--for three years, perhaps for ever?

[Footnote 1: In Hungary the surname precedes the Christian name.]

The tears that have struggled up to Elsa's tender blue eyes, despite her
will to keep them back, add to the charm of her engaging personality,
they help to soften the somewhat serious expression of her young face.
Her cheeks are glowing with the excitement of the dance, her graceful
figure bends to the pressure of Andor's arm around her waist.

Ten or a dozen cotton petticoats are tied round that slim waist of hers,
no two of a like colour, and as she twists and twirls in Andor's arms
the petticoats fly out, till she looks like a huge flower of many hues
with superposed corollas, blue, green, pink and yellow, beneath which
her small feet shod in boots of brilliant leather look like two crimson
stamens.

The tight-fitting corslet bodice and the full, white sleeves of the
shift make her figure appear peculiarly slim and girlish, and her bare
throat and shoulders are smooth and warmly tinted like some luscious
fruit.

No wonder that Andor feels this dance, this movement, the music, the
girl's sweet, quick breath, going to his head like wine. Elsa was always
pretty, always dainty and gentle, but now she is excited, tearful at the
coming parting, and by all t