was a
thick carpet of straw and feathers beneath the beds; the furniture was
an inch deep in dust, and it was impossible to see out of the windows,
which had cobwebs in every corner.

The lady sighed deeply as she entered this apartment; one could almost
read on her countenance, that she was recalling brighter days, when
everything in the house looked very different from what it did now.

Uncle Abris, having very coldly kissed each of the party, endeavoured
to smile a little; but not succeeding, he gave it up, and his features
resumed their usual hard, anxious expression.

His guests would gladly have taken off their cloaks, but where should
they put them down? It would have been ruin to clean clothes to come
in contact with anything in the room.

"I should like to sit down somewhere, Uncle Abris," said Sizika,
looking round her with innocent scrutiny.

"Well, my dear, here are plenty of chairs, and a sofa," said Uncle
Abris.

"What! _may_ I brush off all this pretty dust?" asked Sizika
roguishly. "I thought it was put here to dry."

Karely laughed; while his mother put her finger to her lips, and shook
her head; and Uncle Abris answered quietly, "Dust we are, and unto
dust we must return, and therefore we need not despise dust;" and, in
order to strengthen the golden precept, he lifted the flaps of his
coat, and, wiping three chairs for his guests, seated himself on a
fourth.

The lady placed herself down opposite to her brother. One was silent,
the other did not speak; and so they remained nearly an hour.
Occasionally one or other would sigh deeply, "Heighho!" on which the
other would reply, a quarter of an hour after, "Ay, ay!"

Karely having gone out to look at the horses, Erzsike went to the
window, and, wiping one of the panes with her pocket handkerchief,
tried to look through it. You must not be perplexed, dear readers, at
our having first called this merry little fairy Sizika, then Erzsike;
both denominations come from the same source, and there is perhaps no
name in the Hungarian language which admits of so many variations to
represent the various gradations from the utmost refinement to the
greatest coarseness; hence the tender, caressing Siza, the gay,
roguish Erzsike, the robust, noisy Erzsu, and the dirty, untidy Boske.

It never entered Uncle Abraham's head to ask his guests if they wanted
anything; he only sat and sighed. Matyi, the coachman, a smart lad
from Lower Hungary, now entered; he