that language; if she walks on her tip-toes, the whole
house will walk so; if her head aches, everybody in the house will speak
in whispers; not as when poor Czipra had a burning fever and nine men
came to her bed to sing a funeral song, and offered her brandy."

Topandy laughed still more loudly at these invectives: the poor gypsy
girl fixed her two burning eyes on Lorand's face and kept them there
till they turned into two orbs swimming in water. Then she sprang up,
threw down her chair and fled from the room.

Topandy calmly picked up the overthrown chair and put it in its place,
then he went after Czipra and a minute later brought her back on his arm
into the dining-room, with an exceedingly humorous expression, and a
courtesy worthy of a Spanish grandee, which the poor foolish gypsy girl
did not understand in the least.

So readily did she lose her temper, and so readily did she recover it
again. She sat down again in her place, and jested and laughed,--always
and continuously at the expense of the finely-educated new-comer.

Lorand was curious to know the name of the new member of the family.

"The daughter of one Balnokhazy, P. C." said Topandy, "Melanie, if I
remember well."

Lorand was perplexed. A face from the past! How strange that he should
meet her there?

Still it was so long since they had seen each other, that she would
probably not recognize him.

Melanie was to arrive to-morrow evening. Early in the morning Czipra
visited Lorand in his own room.

She found the young man before his looking-glass.

"Oho!" she said laughing, "you are holding counsel with your glass to
see whether you are handsome enough? Handsome indeed you are: how often
must I say so? Believe me for once."

But Lorand was not taking counsel with his glass on that point: he was
trying to see if he had changed enough.

"Come now," said Czipra with a certain indifference. "I will make you
pretty myself: you must be even more handsome, so that young lady's eyes
may not be riveted upon me. Sit down, I will arrange your hair."

Lorand had glorious chestnut-brown curls, smooth as silk. Madame
Balnokhazy had once fallen madly in love with those locks and Czipra was
wont to arrange them every morning with her own hands: it was one of her
privileges, and she understood it so well.

Lorand was philosopher enough to allow others to do him a service, and
permitted Czipra's fine fingers the privilege of playing among his
locks.

"