d to her to reply, "Get thee hence, Satan!"

The huntsman had laid his snare right well.

A feeling of gratitude often urged the girl to beg Dame Kramm to take
her to this unknown benefactor, that she might express her burning
thanks to her, and take further counsel of her. She also wished to tell
her aunt of the unselfish kindness of which she was the object. These
repeated entreaties drove the worthy old spinster at last into such a
corner that she, one day, suddenly blurted out that this mysterious
benefactor was not a woman, but a man, who wished to remain for ever in
the background.

This discovery at first terrified Fanny greatly; but subsequently it
tickled her fancy all the more. Who could this man be who wished to make
her happy without ever appearing to have a hand in it, and who was so
anxious, so fearful, lest his honest gifts should cast the slightest
slur on her reputation that he would not so much as allow his name to be
mentioned?

What more natural, then, that the girl should draw, in her imagination,
an ideal picture of her unknown defender? She represented him to herself
as a tall, gloomy, pale-faced youth, who never smiled except when doing
good, and his gentle look frequently followed her into her dreams.

Whenever she went for a walk in the streets and encountered young
cavaliers there she would steal glances at them and say to herself, "I
wonder if that one is he, or that?" But not one of them fitted into the
place that she held vacant in her heart.

At last, one day, she did meet with a face with eyes and features and
looks similar to the ideal of her dreams. Yes, she had pictured him just
like that. Yes, this must be her secret tutelary deity, who did not want
himself to be known to her. Yes, yes, this was the hero she was wont to
dream of, with the beautiful blue eyes, the noble features, and the
handsome figure!

Poor girl! That was not her benefactor. That was Rudolf Szentirmay, one
of the noblest and most patriotic of the younger noblemen of Hungary,
already happily married to the lady of his choice, the Countess Flora.
He had no thought of her whatever. But she had got the idea into her
head that he _was_ her benefactor, and nobody could drive it out again.

She begged and prayed Dame Kramm repeatedly to show her, if even at a
distance, the man who had so mysteriously taken charge of her fate. But
when, at last, the good-natured lady had resolved to satisfy her desire,
it was not i