e very dusty and dry in the summer, in the
autumn and spring they are a sea and river of mud, and in the winter the
snow hides the deep, frozen crevasses; but place and street are as God
made them, and it is not man's place to interfere. To begin with, the
cattle and geese and pigs must all pass this way on their way to the
water, so of course it is impossible to do anything with the ground even
if one were so minded.

The inn is the only house in Marosfalva which boldly faces the street,
all the others seem to be looking at it over their shoulders, the front
of one house facing the back of its neighbour, with a bit of garden or
yard between, and so on, the whole kilometre length of the street.

But each house has its wooden verandah, which shields the living rooms
against the glare of the sun in summer, and shelters them from snow and
rain in winter. These wooden verandahs are in a greater or lesser state
of repair and smartness, and under the roof of every verandah hang rows
of the same quaintly-decorated and picturesque earthenware jars.

Round every house, too, there are groups of gay sunflowers and of dull
green hemp, and the roofs, thatched with maize-stalks, are ornamented
along the top with wooden carvings which stand out clear and fantastic
against the intense blue of the sky.

Then, stranger, if you should alight at the top of the street and did
wander slowly down its dusty length, you will presently see it widen out
just in front of the church. It stands well there, doesn't it?--at one
end of this open place, with its flat, whitewashed facade and
tower--red-roofed and crowned with a metal cross that glints in the
sun--the whole building so like in shape to a large white hen, with head
erect and crimson comb and wings spread out flat to the ground.

The presbytery is close by--you cannot miss it. It is a one-storied
house, with a row of green-shuttered windows along the front and at the
side a low gate which leads to a small garden at the back, and over
which appears a vista of brilliant perennials and a stiff row of purple
asters.

There is the tiny school-house, too, which in the late summer is made
very gay in front with vividly coloured dahlias--an orgy of yellow and
brick-red, of magenta and orange.

If your driver has come along with you down the street, he will point
out to you the house of Barna Jeno--mayor of the Commune of
Marosfalva--a personage of vast consideration in the village--a
consid