ed him much in form and
feature.

Beside him sat an old gentleman, with white hair and ruddy complexion.
This was Simon Bardy, an ancient relative, who had grown old with the
grandmother of the family.

The same peculiarity characterized every countenance in the Bardy
family--namely, the lofty forehead and marked brows, and the large
deep-blue eyes, shaded by their heavy dark lashes.[17]

[Footnote 17: There is a race of Hungarians in the Karpath, who,
unlike the Hungarians of the plain, have blue eyes, and often fair
hair.]

* * * * *

"How singular!" exclaimed one of the party; "we are thirteen at table
to-day."

"One of us will surely die," said the old lady; and there was a
mournful conviction in the faint trembling tones.

"O no, grandmother! we are only twelve and a half," exclaimed the
young mother, taking the little one on her knee. "This little fellow
only counts half on the railroad."

All the party laughed at this remark; even the little cripple's pale
countenance relaxed into a sickly smile.

"Ay, ay," continued the old lady, "the trees are now putting forth
their verdure; but at the fall of the leaf, who knows if all, or any
of us, may still be sitting here?"

* * * * *

Several months had passed since this slight incident.

In one of the apartments of the castle, the eldest Bardy and his son
were engaged in earnest conversation.

The father paced hastily up and down the apartment, now and then
stopping short to address his son, who stood in the embrasure of one
of the windows. The latter wore the dress of the Matyas Hussars[18]--a
gray dolmany, with crimson cord; he held a crimson csako, with a
tricoloured cockade in his hand.

[Footnote 18: Part of the free corps raised in 1848.]

"Go," said his father, speaking in broken accents, "the sooner the
better; let me not see you!--do not think I speak in anger; but I
cannot bear to look at you, and think where you are going. You are my
only son, and you know how I have loved you--how all my hopes have
been concentrated in you. But do not think that these tears, which you
see me shed for the first time, are on your account; for if I knew I
should lose you--if your blood were to flow at the next battle, I
should only bow my head in the dust and say, The Lord gave, and the
Lord has taken away, blessed be His holy name! Yes, if I heard that
you and your infatuated companions were cut