"What! are they here too?" said the dame, fixing her sharp eyes on the carriage, like a two-pronged fork. "Well, I can't understand how folks can leave home, and wander abroad for weeks."
"Call my uncle, there's a dear girl, and you can help one another to scold."
The beauty cast another sour glance at the vehicle, and disappeared into the kitchen. Karely, meanwhile, opened the carriage door, and the mud being deep in the gateway, he lifted out the two ladies in his arms. One was his mother—a calm, ladylike person about forty, with a sweet, melancholy expression: the other was his sister—a merry, mischievous looking little fay of about twelve, with bright sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks, and a constant smile on the never-closed lips.
"Welcome kindly! We will not wait for them," said Karely, laughing, as he lifted them out and opened the door, which Boriska had shut behind her.
Our readers having had a slight glance at the travellers, I must inform them that the lady who has just arrived is Mrs. Erzsebet Hamvasi, sister of Abraham Hamvasi, to whose house they have come, and which had been left equally to the lady and her brother by their parents—although Erzsebet Hamvasi, subsequently Tallyai, had left her brother in undisturbed possession, only desiring an occasional reception when en route.
As Karely opened the door, Boriska appeared at the farther end of the room, calling into the stove: "Come out; you have guests here." To which a voice from within responded: "Let them wait." After a few minutes, a door opened behind the stove, and a man of spare bent figure advanced towards the travellers. His face was disfigured by small-pox, and rendered grotesque by a pair of stiff gray moustaches, which grew straight forward from under the nose, leaving only the extremities of the lips visible, and giving him very much the appearance of an otter. He wore an old stuff coat—too cool for winter and too warm for summer—the sleeves of which were turned up to the elbow; for he had just come out of the stove, which he had been plastering, and both hands were covered with mortar.
To judge by his countenance, he certainly did not seem endeavouring to look pleased to see his dear relations; and though the lady greeted him amiably, he did not seem much inclined to open the other side of the door at which she was standing, waiting for her brother's welcome.
"What! so many of you!" he exclaimed, pushing open the door with his elbow; "where the tartar are you all going?"
The lady shook her head placedly, and pointing to her brother's dirty hands—"How now, dear brother!" she said, in a half reproachful and half jesting tone; "must you really do such work yourself?"
"It is no shame to work," replied her brother; "never trust to others what you can do yourself."