were before that last cask of Hungarian wine was
tapped in Ignacz Goldstein's cellar--feel the intoxication of the
departure now, the quick good-byes, the women's tears. A latent spirit
of adventure smothers their sorrow at leaving home.

The gipsies have struck up a melancholy Magyar folksong; the crowd
breaks up in isolated groups, mothers and fathers with their sons
whisper in the dark corners of the barn. The father who did his service
thirty years ago gives sundry good advice--no rebellion, quiet
obedience, no use complaining or grumbling, the three years are quickly
over. The mother begs her darling not to give way to drink, and not to
get entangled with one of the hussies in the towns; women and wine, the
two besetting temptations that assail the Magyar peasant--let the
darling boy resist both for his sorrowing mother's sake.

But the lad only listens with half an ear, his dark eyes roam around the
barn in search of the sweetheart; he wants one more protestation of love
from her lips, one final oath of fidelity.

Andor has neither father to admonish him, nor mother to pray over him;
the rich uncle Lakatos Pal, with whom he has lived hitherto, does not
care enough about him to hang weeping round his neck.

And Elsa has given her father and mother the slip, and joined Andor
outside the barn.

Her blue eyes--tired after fifteen hours of pleasure--blink in the glare
of the brilliant sun. Andor puts his arm round her waist and she,
closing her aching eyes, allows him to lead her away.

And now they are wandering down the great dusty high road, beneath the
sparse shade of the stunted acacias that border it. They feel neither
heat, nor dust, and say but little as they walk. From behind them,
muffled by louder sounds, come the sweet, sad strains of the Magyar
love-song, "Csak egy kis lany van a vilagon."

"There is but one girl in all the world,
And she is my own white dove.
Oh! How great must God's love be for me!
That He thought of giving you to me."

"Elsa, you will wait for me?" asked Andor, with deep, passionate anxiety
at last.

"I will wait for you, Andor," replied the girl simply, "if the good God
will give me the strength."

"The strength, Elsa, will be in yourself," he urged, "if only you love
me as I love you."

"Three years is such a long time!" she sighed.

"I will count the weeks that separate us, Elsa--the days--the hours----"

"I, too, will be counting them."

"When I co