there, not even a robber.

After they had passed the wood, they saw an old castle among the trees,
on the top of a hill. It was the Castle of Slatina, had formerly
belonged to the Czobors, and was now the property of the Princes of
Coburg.

They had to stop at an inn to feed the horses, and Veronica proposed
their going to look at the castle, of which an old man had charge; he
would show them over it. The innkeeper assured them some of the rooms
were just as the Czobors had left them; in the court were a few old
cannon, and in the house a collection of curious old armor, and some
very interesting family portraits, among them that of a little girl,
Katalin Czobor, who had disappeared from her home at the age of seven.
Veronica was very interested in the child.

"And what happened to her?" she asked.

"The poor child has never turned up to this day!" sighed the innkeeper.

"And when was it she disappeared?"

"About three hundred years ago," he answered with a smile, and then
accompanied his guests up the mountain path that led to the castle.

They were silent on their return, only Madame Krisbay remarking:

"What a mouldy smell there was in there!"

Veronica had caught sight of a beautiful rose on a large bush near the
half-ruined walls of the bastion.

"What an exquisite flower!" she exclaimed.

The old caretaker had a legend about that too. From this spot beautiful
Maria Czobor had sprung from the walls, and thrown herself down the
precipice, for her father wished her to marry an officer in the
Emperor's army, and she was in love with a shepherd. The latter had
planted a rose-bush on this spot, and every year it bore one single
blossom. Gyuri dropped behind the others, and begged the old man to give
him the rose.

"My dear sir, what are you thinking of? Why, the poor girl's spirit
would haunt me if I were to do such a thing!"

Gyuri took out his purse and pressed two silver florins into the man's
hand, upon which, without further ado, he took out his knife and cut
the rose.

"Won't the young lady's spirit haunt you now?" asked Gyuri, smiling.

"No, because with part of the money I will have a Mass said for the
repose of her soul."

Gyuri ran after the ladies with the rose in his hand, and offered it to
Veronica.

"Here is Maria Czobor's rose," he said. "Will you give me your pink in
exchange?"

But she put her hands behind her back, and said coldly:

"How could you have the heart to pick it?"