carnations and violets, all the time turning in her mind where she
could most conveniently hide the sonnet--for, after all, it would be
very hard-hearted to burn it.

At last she remembered the glass-house, and hastened thither with the
intention of putting the paper under one of the great cactus pots. She
looked round on entering, to see that she was quite alone. Loneliness
is the godmother of every weakness, and when she took the paper out of
her pocket she could not withstand the temptation of looking once more
into it--nobody would see if she blushed--and, with trembling hands,
as if she were committing something very scandalous, she unfolded the
paper, and read with a beating heart the lines addressed to her.

The verses were of that kind which our young literature produced about
twenty years ago--for we have always had a _young_ literature, which
never attained maturity--whose constrained inspirations, insipid
taste, and high-sounding problems, had at least this one advantage,
that, possessing no feeling at all, they were incapable of exciting
any. Lina, blushing deeply, was forced to recognise herself in "the
rosebud whose perfume is intoxicating bliss;" as "Heaven's loveliest
angel, the night of whose glossy ringlets might form a pall beneath
which it were ecstasy to expire, while the sunny radiance of her dark
eyes would wake to life again." The sonnet was signed, "Kalman S--s."

Lina knew the youth. She had frequently met him in Sz----, at the
county meetings, and having read the lines, she did not think them so
very dreadful after all, except of course in a poetical point of
view.

As she was still holding the open paper in her hand, a voice called
from the garden door, "Miss Lina!"

Starting up, she once more thrust the paper into the pocket of her
apron, and, turning very pale, ran to the door.

"Guests have arrived, Miss Lina! make haste home," said the servant,
who had been sent for her.

* * * * *

An ancestral conveyance, with three unhappy horses, was standing at
the door!

Our readers will guess to whom it belonged.

Lina took the handkerchief from her head, smoothed her hair with her
hands, and hastened into the room, where numerous voices were to be
heard all talking together with exclamations of joy.

It was just themselves, dear reader; the good-natured country
gentleman, the dictatorial lady, our nephew Sandor, and his amiable
little brother, Peterke.