o where I shall be more welcome."

In the meanwhile, in the barn time had been flying along on the wings of
enjoyment. Ever since six o'clock, when vespers were well over and the
gipsies had struck up the first csardas, merry feet had been tripping it
almost incessantly.

It is amazing what a capacity the young Hungarian peasant--man or
woman--has for footing the national dance. With intervals of singing and
of gossiping these young folk in the barn had been going on for over
three hours.

And they were not even beginning to get tired. To the Hungarian
peasants, be it remembered, the csardas is not merely a dance, though
they enjoy the movement, of course, the exhilaration and the excitement
of the music, just as all healthy young animals would enjoy gambolling
on a meadow; there is a deeper meaning to these children of the plains
in the sweet, sad strains of their songs and in the mazes and
intricacies of their dance.

They put their whole life, their entire sentiment for country and
sweetheart, in the music and in the dance, and the music and the dance
give outward expression to their feelings, speak in the language of
poetry which they feel well enough, but which their untutored tongue
cannot frame.

A Hungarian peasant in sorrow or distress will probably, like his
Western prototype, seek to drown his grief in drink; far be it from his
chronicler's mind to suggest that his sentiments are more elevated than
those of the peasantry of other nations, or his morality more sound. He
will get drunk, too, like men of other nations, but he will do it to the
accompaniment of music. The gipsy band must be there, when he is in
trouble or in joy--one or two fiddles, perhaps a clarionet, always a
czimbalom--just these few instruments to play his favourite songs. They
don't ease his sorrow, but they help to soothe it by bringing tears to
his eyes and softening the bitterness of his grief.

And in joy he will invariably dance; when he is in love he will dance,
for the csardas helps him to explain to the girl whom he loves exactly
what he feels for her. And she understands. One csardas will reveal to a
Hungarian village maid the state of her lover's heart far more clearly
than do all the whisperings behind hedges in more civilized lands.

It was in the csardas five years ago that Elsa had learned from Andor
how much he loved her; it was during the mazes of the dance that she was
able to overcome her shyness and tell him mut