Alexander gently raised the old man's hand to his lips, which he placed on his head, as if by way of blessing.
"And then," continued the master, "how nice it will be if you bring a wife home, and I have the joy of a happy domestic life which I have never had yet!"
Alexander sighed. "We shall have to live a long time before we get to that," said he.
"What? Do you want to remain wifeless all your days? Come, don't pull such a holy mug as that! Would you keep your secrets from me, when you know I can see through you as if you were a glass of water? Do you think I don't know whom you love? Speak out! don't be such a coward! Tell the girl you love her, and cannot do without her. Or perhaps you would like me to woo her for you? I shouldn't mind that, I am sure; I should like to be your best man. Well, and now I'll go and ask the girl to have you, and to-morrow you shall have her, and we'll have such a betrothal that the very angels shall dance for joy."
Alexander never said a word; but he cast down his eyes, turned pale, pressed Master Boltay's hand in silence, and then quitted the room.
So long as the lad had been with him, Boltay was all radiant and jocose, but when he had departed, a couple of tears trickled from the old
man's eyes. He himself suspected and feared that Alexander loved in vain.
Boltay thought the matter over for some time, and then resolved to first of all ask for Fanny's hand for Alexander—perhaps the girl might still have some kindly feeling for him. If she rejected the proposal, and declared she did not care for the youth at all, he would lay the second offer before her. What would she say to that? Could she possibly be amiable to an old fellow of over seventy, after coldly shutting her heart against a handsome young man?
So the same day Boltay rode out to his country den, which was situated in a romantic little valley in the Carpathians, to pay his ward a visit.
Fanny rushed out to meet Boltay's waggon when he was still a long way off, dragged him down from the coach-box, and, full of childlike gaiety, conducted him all round her little domain; and Boltay kept pinching her cheeks, which were so firm and round that he could scarcely grip hold of them. It was plain that she did not give so much of her time now to melancholy brooding.