"Your mother said that I might take you to see the Hora danced," she announced. The Hora is the Roumanian national dance.
"Oh, good!" cried Jonitza, throwing a book that he was holding up to the ceiling and catching it again.
Soon after, Maritza's brother came for his sister. He was a rather tall, dark-eyed man and dressed in spotless white linen trousers with a ruffle around the ankles and deep pointed pockets in front, embroidered in red. To be sure to be on time they started at once, Maritza laughingly repeating that they "must dance on Sunday to keep the creak out of their bones on Monday."
A half hour's walk brought them to a modest section of Bukurest, where, in a square opposite a tavern, a host of peasant men and women in their gayest costumes, were already gathered. Knowing how eager Maritza was to dance, Jonitza urged her to leave him on the lawn. "I shall be all right here under the trees," he said.
When she consented, he threw himself down to watch. Soon gypsy musicians seated themselves on a platform at one edge of the square and began to play. At once men and maidens clasped hands and began a swaying motion to words improvised by certain of the youths who were in charge of the dance for the day.
Others joined; the ring grew gigantic and then suddenly broke into two, each part with its set of leaders, while a shout of pleasurable excitement rent the air.
Jonitza enjoyed it all for quite a while and then began to yawn. As he turned to see if he could find anything else of interest his glance fell on a boy seated some distance away under a huge lime-tree. Something about this boy made Jonitza sit upright. Suddenly he leaped to his feet, ran wildly forward, and put his hands over the other boy's eyes.
"Guess," he said in a muffled voice.
In answer the other boy jumped up, over-throwing Jonitza as he did so. It was Nicolaia.
For a moment both boys showed considerable emotion. "When did you come? Are you going to stay in Bukurest? Where do you live?" were some of the questions that Jonitza hurled at his companion.