Tephany still went on in spite of her fatigue, and came at last to her aunt’s farm, worn out with weariness, but still more with grief. Her wishes had brought her so little satisfaction, that she passed many days without making another. However, Dénès’ visits grew more and more uncertain; he had undertaken to clear a warren, and there he toiled from morning until night.
When the young girl regretted seeing so little of him, he had always to reply that his labour was their sole resource; and that if people want to spend their time in talking together, they must needs have legacies or dowries.
Then Tephany began to complain and to desire.
“God pardon me,” said she, in a low voice; “but what I ought to ask for is not liberty to see Dénès every day, for he soon gets tired of it; nor wit, for it scares him; nor beauty, for it brings upon me trouble and mistrust; but rather wealth, for then one can be master of oneself and others. Ah, if I dared to make yet one petition more of the old aunt, I would be wiser than I was before.”
“Be satisfied,” said the voice of the old beggar, though Tephany perceived her not. “Feel in your right pocket, and you will find a little box; rub your eyes with the ointment it contains, and you will have a treasure in yourself.”
The young girl hastily felt in her pocket, found the box, opened it, and began to rub her eyes as she had been desired, when Barbaik Bourhis entered.
She who, in spite of herself, had now for some time past consumed whole days in cabbage-counting, and who saw all the farm-work fallen into arrears, was only waiting an occasion for visiting her wrath upon somebody. Seeing her niece sitting down doing nothing, she clasped her hands and cried,
“That’s the way, then, that the work goes on whilst I am in the fields. Ah, I am surprised no longer that we are all going to ruin. Are you not ashamed, you wretch, to plunder food in this way from your kith and kin?”
Tephany would have excused herself; but Barbaik’s rage was like milk heating on a turf-fire—let but the first bubble rise, and all mounts upwards and boils over; from reproaches she came to threats, and from threats to a box on the ear.
Tephany, who had borne every thing patiently till then, could no longer restrain her tears; but guess her astonishment when she perceived that every tear was a beautiful and shining fair round pearl.