"Yes, my dear, I understand; but what am I to say to our relations?"
"Why, what have we been talking about?--that I am going to be married!"
"Ha, ha, ha, ha! why, that is the _facit_ of the matter."
"Kalman Sos--Kalman Sos; I have heard the name once before. How do you spell it--with two _o_'s or two _s_'s?"
"A poet!" replied Julia, with a grave sigh.
Julia stared at her uncle, partly in surprise, partly in anger, as if to say, How simple you old people are! and then, with a disdainful shrug, she replied, "Fate was generous enough, I think, in bestowing on him a rich mind, without adding a rich position too."
Nanasy bacsi did not understand this logic, but contented himself by thus filling up the rubric: Whoever he may be, actor, dancing-master, or what else, she will certainly be able to manage him.
Julia left the old man to think what he pleased, while she prepared with her own hands all that was necessary for his journey--not forgetting his shaving materials--wrote her commissions in a pocket-book, in which she placed a heap of uncounted notes, and, thrusting it into Uncle Nanasy's pocket, she assisted him to put on his great-coat and fur cloak, drew his travelling-cap over his head, and would not let him breathe until she saw him seated in the carriage, that he might have no time to betray her secret.
Nanasy bacsi, however, bursting with the importance of his mission, happened to meet one or two friends as he was passing through the town, and, thrusting his head out of the carriage, without stopping, he told the first that his niece was going to be married in a week, the second, that he was on his way for a dispensation, and the third, that he was going to Pesth for dresses and confectionary; and, in about an hour afterwards, the whole town was talking of the secret marriage, and guessing who the happy bridegroom might be--for Nanasi bacsi had not told his name, husbanding his news, like all true gossips, that he might have something new to relate when he came back.
Meanwhile, Julia returned to her room, with the placid conviction of having arranged all her affairs to satisfaction, and gave orders to her servants not to admit any person except Kalman.
In a short time the sound of steps echoed along the corridor, and Julia assumed her sweetest smiles; for our readers are no doubt aware that, under such circumstances, namely, when one is in love, even the sound of a boot-heel may be recognised. In this respect, only the editors of newspapers have a finer instinct--who, it is said, tell, even from the sound of a step in the street, whether it is the postman with subscribers or a poet with his verses. In this case the magnetism was reversed; Julia expected the poet, not the postman, and she was not deceived--