t words had apparently poured oil over the already troubled waters of
the young man's wrath, for now his sullen expression vanished, and a
light of satisfaction and of pride lit up his ungainly face:

"And I will fetch my future wife in a style befitting her new position,
you may be sure of that," he said, and brought his clenched fist down
upon the table with a crash, so that pots and pans rattled upon the
hearth and started the paralytic from his torpor.

Then he threw his head back and began to talk still more arrogantly and
defiantly than he had done hitherto.

"Forty-eight oxen," he said, "shall fetch her in six carts! Aye! even
though she has not one stick of furniture wherewith to endow her future
husband. Forty-eight oxen, I tell you, Irma neni! Never has there been
such a procession seen in Marosfalva! But Eros Bela is the richest man
in the Commune," he added, with an aggressive laugh, "and don't you
forget it."

But the allusion to Elsa's poverty and his own riches had exasperated
the old woman.

"With all your riches," she retorted, in her turn, with a sneer, "you
had to court Elsa for many years before she accepted you."

"And probably she would not have accepted me at all if you had not
bullied and worried her, and ordered her to say 'Yes' to me," he
rejoined dryly.

"Children must obey their parents," she said, "it is the law of God."

"A law which you, for one, apply to your own advantage, eh, Irma neni?"

"Have you any cause for complaint?"

"Oh, no! Elsa's obedience has served me well. And though I dare say," he
added, suddenly casting a sullen look upon the young girl, "she has not
much love for me now, she will do her duty by me as my wife, and love
will follow in the natural course of things."

Elsa had taken no part in this wordy warfare between her mother and her
future husband. It seemed almost as if she had not heard a word of it.
No doubt her ears were trained by now no longer to heed these squabbles.
She had drawn a low stool close to the invalid's chair, and sitting near
him with her hand resting on his knee, she was whispering and talking
animatedly to him, telling him all the gossip of the village, recounting
to him every small event of the afternoon and of the morning: Pater
Bonifacius' sermon, the behaviour of the choir boys, Patkos Emma's new
kerchief; when the stock of gossip gave out she began to sing to him, in
a low, sweet voice, one of those innumerable folk-songs so dea