sth, within the shortest time
possible."

"Depend on me, my darling; I shall employ the most celebrated
milliners, Varga or Sovari--and if I do not bring the most magnificent
bridal dress within a week, advertise me in the papers as a stray dog,
for which the lucky finder will receive five florins!"

"Write to my relations at the same time," continued Julia, "and invite
them to the ceremony on this day week; but for this you will have time
enough in Pesth. I have ordered the carriage, and now you have nothing
to do but to get into it and drive off."

"Yes, my dear, I understand; but what am I to say to our relations?"

"Why, what have we been talking about?--that I am going to be
married!"

"Yes, but to whom?"

"Why, is it necessary to know that too?"

"Ha, ha, ha, ha! why, that is the _facit_ of the matter."

"How odd!--well, say Kalman Sos."

"Kalman Sos--Kalman Sos; I have heard the name once before. How do you
spell it--with two _o_'s or two _s_'s?"

"With as many as you like!"

"Who, or what is this fine young man?"

"A poet!" replied Julia, with a grave sigh.

"But what else?"

Julia stared at her uncle, partly in surprise, partly in anger, as if
to say, How simple you old people are! and then, with a disdainful
shrug, she replied, "Fate was generous enough, I think, in bestowing
on him a rich mind, without adding a rich position too."

Nanasy bacsi did not understand this logic, but contented himself by
thus filling up the rubric: Whoever he may be, actor, dancing-master,
or what else, she will certainly be able to manage him.

Julia left the old man to think what he pleased, while she prepared
with her own hands all that was necessary for his journey--not
forgetting his shaving materials--wrote her commissions in a
pocket-book, in which she placed a heap of uncounted notes, and,
thrusting it into Uncle Nanasy's pocket, she assisted him to put on
his great-coat and fur cloak, drew his travelling-cap over his head,
and would not let him breathe until she saw him seated in the
carriage, that he might have no time to betray her secret.

Nanasy bacsi, however, bursting with the importance of his mission,
happened to meet one or two friends as he was passing through the
town, and, thrusting his head out of the carriage, without stopping,
he told the first that his niece was going to be married in a week,
the second, that he was on his way for a dispensation, and the third,
that he was going to P