all those grand ladies she saw at
church. And before the day was over she had found out that it would
hardly hurt her at all to have her ears pierced.

Yes, she wanted to have some earrings, and now she did all she could to
bring Gregorics into temptation. She dressed herself neatly, wore a red
ribbon in her hair, in fact, made herself thoroughly irresistible.
Gregorics may have been wily enough to be a spy for a whole Russian and
Austrian army, but a woman, however simple, was far deeper than he.

Next Sunday she went to church with earrings in her ears, much to the
amusement of the lads and lasses of the town, who had long ago dubbed
her "the Grenadier." And in a few weeks' time the whole town was full of
gossip about Gregorics and his cook, and all sorts of tales were told,
some of them supremely ridiculous. His step-brothers would not believe
it.

"A Gregorics and a servant! Such a thing was never heard of before!"

The neighbors tried to pacify them by saying there was nothing strange
in the fact, on the contrary it was quite natural. Pal Gregorics had
never done things correctly all his life. How much was true and how much
false is not known, but the gossip died away by degrees, only to awaken
again some years later, when a small boy was seen playing about with a
pet lamb in Pal Gregorics's courtyard. Who was the child? Where did he
come from? Gregorics himself was often seen playing with him. And
people, who sometimes out of curiosity looked through the keyhole of the
great wooden gates, saw Gregorics, with red ribbons tied round his
waist for reins, playing at horses with the child, who with a whip in
his hand kept shouting, "Gee-up, Raro." And the silly old fellow would
kick and stamp and plunge, and even race round the courtyard. And now he
was rarely seen limping through the town in his shabby clothes, to which
he had become accustomed when he was a spy, and under his arm his red
umbrella; he always had it with him, in fine or wet weather, and never
left it in the hall when he paid a visit, but took it into the room with
him, and kept it constantly in his hand. Sometimes the lady of the house
asked if he would not put it down.

"No, no," he would answer, "I am so used to having it in my hand that I
feel quite lost without it. It is as though one of my ribs were missing,
upon my word it is!"

There was a good deal of talk about this umbrella. Why was he so
attached to it? It was incomprehensible. Suppos