days of bitter suffering. He
was ridiculed because a girl had thrashed him, the cruel nickname of
"the Hideous One" was given him, people gazed at him with horror
whenever he appeared in the street. Panna continued to visit him every
Sunday, but he received her distantly, taciturnly, even sullenly.

So Christmas came. On Christmas Eve Panna had a long talk with her
father, and the next morning, after church, he again went to old Frau
Molnar and without any preamble, said bluntly and plainly:

"Why won't Pista marry my Panna?"

The widow clasped her hands and answered:

"Would she take him?"

"You are all blind mice together," scolded the peasant, "of course she
would, or surely she wouldn't do what she has done for months past.
Isn't it enough that she runs after the obstinate blockhead? She can't
ask him to have her."

Just then Pista himself came in. His mother hesitatingly told him what
she had just heard, and the old woman looked at him enquiringly and
expectantly. When the young man heard what they were discussing he
became very pale and agitated, but at first said nothing. Not until
his mother and the guest assailed him impatiently with "Well?" and "Is
it all right?" did he summon up his composure and reply:

"Panna is a good girl, and may God bless her. But I, too, am no
scoundrel. Honest folk would spit in my face, if I should accept
Panna's sacrifice. I'd rather live a bachelor forever than let her do
me a favour and poison her own life."

His mother and would-be father-in-law talked in vain, he still
persisted:

"I cannot believe that Panna loves me, and I won't take favours."

The simple, narrow-minded fellow did not know that the sense of justice
and absolute necessity can move a human soul as deeply, urge it as
strongly to resolves, as love itself, so from his standpoint he really
was perfectly right.

To cut the matter short: Pista remained obdurate from Christmas until
New Year, notwithstanding that his mother and Panna's father beset him
early and late. The girl suffered very keenly during this period, and
her eyes were always reddened by tears. But when New Year came, and
still Pista did not bestir himself, the strong, noble girl, after
violent conflicts in her artless mind, formed a great resolution, went
to Pista herself, and said without circumlocution, excitement, or
hesitation:

"I understand your pride and, if I were a man, would behave as you do.
But I beg you to have