horse won't!"

"Well, use your spurs."

"So I would, but there are no spurs on sandals!"

The horse was a wretched one, but all the same, next day they heard a
carriage stop at the door, and who should get out but Sztolarik himself.
Great man though he was, no one was glad to see him except the priest.
Veronica felt frightened. She hardly knew why, but it seemed as though a
breath of cold air had entered with him. Why had he come here just now?

The old lawyer was very pleasant to her.

"So this is little Veronica?" he asked.

"Yes," answered Gyuri proudly.

The old gentleman took her small hand in his large one, and pinched her
cheek in fatherly fashion. But no amount of pinching would bring the
roses back just then. Her heart was heavy with fear. Why, oh, why had he
come?

Gyuri was surprised too, for Sztolarik hated to leave his home.

"Have you brought them?" he asked.

"Yes."

Veronica drew a breath of relief, for Gyuri had mentioned that he
expected the engagement rings from Besztercebanya.

"Give them to me," he said.

"Later on," answered the old lawyer. "First of all I must speak to you."

He must speak to him first? Then he must have something to say which
could not be said after they had exchanged rings! Veronica again felt a
weight on her heart. Gyuri got up discontentedly from his place next to
Veronica, whose fingers began to play nervously with the work she had in
her hands.

"Come across to my room then."

Gyuri's room was at the other end of the house, which was built in the
shape of an L. It used to be the schoolroom before the new school was
built. (Widow Adamecz had learnt her A B C there.) The priest who had
been there before Father Janos had divided the room into two parts by a
nicely painted wooden partition, and of one half he had made a spare
bedroom, of the other a storeroom.

Veronica was feeling as miserable as she could, and her one wish at that
moment was to hear the two gentlemen's conversation, for everything
depended on that. Some demon who had evidently never been to school, and
had never learned that it was dishonorable to listen at doors or walls,
whispered to her:

"Run quickly, Veronica, into the storeroom, and if you press your ear to
the wall, you will be able to hear what they say."

Off went Veronica like a shot. It is incredible what an amount of honey
a demon of that description can put into his words; he was capable of
persuading this well-educated gi