In time the villagers began to feel ashamed of the simple wooden belfry, and had a tower built to the church, and hung two bells in it from Besztercebánya. János Srankó had a splendid statue of the Holy Family erected in front of the church, to commemorate his resurrection from the dead. The governess (for a time Father János had a governess for little Veronica) filled the priest's garden with dahlias, fuchsias, and other flowers which the inhabitants of Glogova had never yet seen.

Everything improved and was beautified (except Widow Adamecz, who got uglier day by day), and the villagers even went so far as to discuss on Sunday afternoons the advisability of building a chapel upon the mountain St. Peter had been seen on, in order to make it a place of pilgrimage and attract even more visitors.

The Gregorics Family
PART II

CHAPTER I.
THE TACTLESS MEMBER OF THE FAMILY.

Many years before our story begins, there lived in Besztercebánya a man of the name of Pál Gregorics, who was always called a tactless man, whereas all his life was spent in trying to please others. Pál Gregorics was always chasing Popularity, and instead of finding it came face to face with Criticism, a much less pleasing figure. He was born nine months after his father's death, an act of tactlessness which gave rise to plenty of gossip, and much unpleasantness to his mother, who was a thoroughly good, honest woman. If he had only arrived a little earlier ... but after all he could not help it. As far as the other Gregorics were concerned, he had better not have been born at all, for of course the estates were cut up more than they would otherwise have been.

The child was weak and sickly, and his grown-up brothers always hoped for his death; however, he did not die, but grew up, and when of age took possession of his fortune, most of which he had inherited from his mother, who had died during his minority and left him her whole fortune; whereas the children of the first wife only had their share of the father's fortune, which, however, was not to be sneered at, for old Gregorics had done well in the wine trade. In those days it was easier to get on in that line than it is now, for, in the first place, there was wine in the country, and in the second place there were no Jews. In these days there is plenty of Danube water in the wine-cellars, but not much juice of the grapes.

Nature had blessed Pál Gregorics with a freckly face and red hair, which made people quote the old saying, "Red-haired people are never good."

So Pál Gregorics made up his mind to prove that it was untrue. All these old sayings are like pots in which generations have been cooking for ages, and Pál Gregorics intended to break one of them. He meant to be "as good as a piece of bread, and as soft as butter, which allows itself to be spread equally well on white bread or black." (This is a favorite phrase among the peasants, when describing a very good man.)