e enthusiastic plaudits
of the whole company. As she finished, laughing and breathless,
she caught sight of Kalman, who had just entered.

"There," she exclaimed, "I have lost my breath, and Kalman will
sing now."

Immediately her suggestion was taken up on every hand.

"A song! A song!" they shouted. "Kalman Kalmar will sing! Come,
Kalman, 'The Shepherd's Love.'" "No, 'The Soldier's Bride.'"
"No, no, 'My Sword and my Cup.'"

"First my own cup," cried the boy, pressing toward the beer keg in
the corner and catching up a mug.

"Give him another," shouted a voice.

"No, Kalman," said his sister in a low voice, "no more beer."

But the boy only laughed at her as he filled his mug again.

"I am too full to sing just now," he cried; "let us dance," and,
seizing Irma, he carried her off under the nose of the disappointed
Sprink, joining with the rest in one of the many fascinating dances
of the Hungarian people.

But the song was only postponed. In every social function of the
foreign colony, Kalman's singing was a feature. The boy loved to
sing and was ever ready to respond to any request for a song. So
when the cry for a song rose once more, Kalman was ready and eager.
He sprang upon a beer keg and cried, "What shall it be?"

"My song," said Irma, who stood close to him.

The boy shook his head. "Not yet."

"'The Soldier's Bride,'" cried a voice, and Kalman began to sing.
He had a beautiful face with regular clean-cut features, and the
fair hair and blue grey eyes often seen in South Eastern Russia.
As he sang, his face reflected the passing shades of feeling in
his heart as a windless lake the cloud and sunlight of a summer sky.
The song was a kind of Hungarian "Young Lochinvar." The soldier
lover, young and handsome, is away in the wars; the beautiful
maiden, forced into a hateful union with a wealthy land owner,
old and ugly, stands before the priest at the altar. But hark!
ere the fateful vows are spoken there is a clatter of galloping
hoofs, a manly form rushes in, hurls the groom insensible to the
ground, snatches away the bride and before any can interfere,
is off on a coal-black steed, his bride before him. Let him
follow who dares!

The boy had a voice of remarkable range and clearness, and he
rendered the song with a verve and dramatic force remarkable in one
of his age. The song was received with wild cheers and loud demands
for more. The boy was about to refuse, when through the crowding
faces