u not yourself madly in love with me, eh?" interrupted her
husband, putting his arm round her waist.

"Get along!" cried his wife, striking his hand and blushing to the
eyes; "I'd like to know for what?"

The old peasant meanwhile pulled my cloak, and whispered, "I don't
like speaking here, sir, for they only laugh at me; but if you would
like to hear, come this evening. I will be standing in the porch, and
there I can tell you. It is a sad story enough, and may interest you
to hear it."

Mistress Kata reverted frequently to the subject, exclaiming ever and
anon, as the bread baked, and she took each loaf out of the oven and
turned up its shining crust, "Well, that is an idea!--go mad for love
of you, forsooth, as if you were worth going mad for!"

I did not forget my evening tryst, and found the old man in the porch.
I greeted him with "Adjon Isten,"[33] and placed myself beside him on
the bench.

[Footnote 33: _Adjon Isten_, God give--an abbreviation for, God give
good day, &c.]

The old man returned my salutation, and, emptying his pipe, began
striking fire with a flint. "Permit me, sir, to light my pipe again;
for I cannot now think much unless I see the smoke before me;" then,
drawing his cap far over his brow, he began his tale:--

"Nobody remembers anything about it now, for full sixty years have
passed since it happened; I was myself a barefooted boy, and it is
only a wonder that I have not forgotten it too. That poor idiot whom
you saw there, that wrinkled old creature, was then a beautiful young
girl, and that Joska bacsi of whom she always speaks was--my own
brother! There was not a handsomer pair among all the peasants than
those two; I have seen many a rising generation since, but never any
like them! Our parents were mutually sponsors. Marcsa's mother held my
brother and me at our baptism, and my mother held Marcsa. We played
together, we went to school together, and to the Lord's Table on
Easter Sunday. Hej! that was a good priest who christened and
catechized us; he has been long since preaching in heaven; and the
worthy chanter who instructed us too, is up striking time among the
angels!

"The lad and the young girl had been so attached from their childhood,
that they never dreamed they could live otherwise than together. Our
mother always called Marcsa her little daughter-in-law; and when she
and my brother were each nineteen years old, their parents decided
that if God pleased to preserve u