"Excellent, excellent, my good friend! You shall make me acquainted with those only whom I should like, and say nothing about the rest. Ah, you know the world well. That is indeed good advice."
Mr. Varga looked beseechingly at Fanny, as if to insist that she was not to praise him too much, or he should get confused again and forget what he wished to say.
Then he took up the long list, and began to go through it, running his finger along it, but so as not to touch the names, lest he might offend their owners by such ignoble contact. Now and then the conducting finger would pause at a name, and Mr. Varga would look up as if about to speak; but in the very act of coughing to give the proper shade of respect to his voice, he would look again at the name singled out by his finger, think better of it, and tacitly schedule it among those who, though blessed with all recognized good qualities, he did not think suitable for his purpose. But as he drew near to the end of the list, he was horror-
stricken to observe how many names he had been obliged to pass over in silence, and drops of honest sweat began to congregate on his forehead as the index finger left ever more and more names behind it—the names of people whom he always treated with the most awful reverence, but not one of whom he would have recommended to the confidence of his daughter, if he had had one. And he had now begun to regard Fanny as his own daughter.
Ah! at last his long-drawn features grew round again with satisfaction, and his hand trembled on the paper when it reached a name that it had long been in search of.
"Look, my lady!" said he, extending the list towards her. "This admirable lady is certainly one of those in whom your ladyship can repose your confidence without running the risk of being deceived."
Fanny read the name indicated—"Flora Eszéky Szentirmay."
"What is this lady like?" she inquired of the old man.
"Verily, I should have need of very great eloquence to describe her to you worthily. She is rich in all the virtues one looks for in a woman. Gentleness and prudence go hand in hand with her. The oppressed and downtrodden find in her a secret protector; for she does her good deeds in secret, and forbids grateful tongues to talk about her. Not only is it the hungry, the naked, the sick, and the wretched among whom she distributes bread, garments, medicine, and kind words, who know what a good heart she has; not only is it those under legal sentence, for whom she pleads compassionately in high places: her benevolence goes much further than all that; for she takes the part of those who are spiritually poor and wretched, those whom the world condemns, poor betrayed girls who have tripped into endless misery, poor women bending
beneath the crosses of a hard domestic life; and they all find in her a friend, a defender who can get to the bottom of their hearts. Pardon me for presuming so far. I know right well that there are many other exalted personages who also do a great deal of good to the poor; but they seem only to take thought for the bodily wants of the destitute, whereas this lady cares for their spiritual needs as well, and thus it comes about that she frequently finds poor sufferers in need of her assistance, not only in hovels, but in palaces. This lady brings a blessing into every house she enters, and scatters happiness and contentment all round about her. Indeed, I only know of one other lady who is worthy to stand beside her, and nothing would give me greater joy than to see them both at one with each other."