n went down and the air
began to get chill. Then the most prudent of the two children--it was
the girl, no doubt--suggested to the other that the grass was wet with
dew, and that it would be well to go back to the house.

Arpad took his boat out of the water, and put it and the flute back in
their hiding-place, and returned to his mother.

Madame Belenyi did not scold him. She did not, however, kiss him on
his forehead, as she was wont to do. She showed him all she had done
to settle the house while he had been amusing himself in the garden.

Arpad was very much pleased to find it so comfortable.

"Mother," he said, "we will live here always."

"I don't object to our living here, Arpad; only there is one
condition. You must marry a good girl, and bring her here to help
me."

"I, mother?" returned Arpad, half pleased and yet astonished.

"Yes, you. Why not? You are a young man. I cannot look after you
always."

Arpad laughed again. "So, because I have grown a young man, and that
you cannot keep me any longer at your apron-string, I must take a wife
who will keep me in better order than you can. Is that it, mother?"

"My son, it is in the natural order," returned Madame Belenyi,
gravely, and as if there were no other course for a young man but to
have either a mother or a wife to look after him. It did not enter
into her imagination that he could look after himself.

"Sooner or later I shall obey your wishes; but just now, as we have
got a house, I shall have enough to do to provide the house-keeping,
and I could not take a wife with me here and there when I have to
fulfil my professional engagements. For this sort of Bohemian life,
vagabondizing from Paris to London, Petersburg to Vienna, is a bad
thing for a woman, whether she goes with her husband or is left
behind."

"But we have something to live on, Arpad. I have been very lucky with
your earnings, and there is a nice nest-egg in the bank. Besides,
there are the shares. Don't laugh, you silly boy! Although they are
only worth ten gulden, yet there are a thousand of them. If we realize
them, that would be ten thousand gulden. In a small town like this
that sum would be a fortune, and with it you need not scruple to take
a wife."

"Mamma, you don't understand about these shares. _One_ could easily be
realized, but if the next day I were to go to the same place with
another for sale they would kick me out. Any one who would offer a
thousand Bondavara sh