"Where is the bride?" and "Where is the bridegroom?" was in every mouth; but, for once in his life, Nanasy bacsi answered discreetly—that Julia was at her toilet.
Meanwhile Julia had arrayed herself in her bridal attire, in which she really looked like a fairy queen, and was in the act of placing the wreath on her head when the door opened, and who should enter but—Kalman Sos!
Julia, who was standing before the mirror and saw him enter, had just time to check the start of astonishment which his appearance caused, and, turning calmly round, "O you bad man!" she exclaimed in a voice of gentle reproach, "to have put me to such an unmerciful trial. If I had not known you so well, I might have been quite desperate on your account."
"Then you never doubted me?"
"Doubted you! how could I imagine that you would forsake me, when everybody knew we were going to be married! I must have had a very low opinion of you indeed, had I thought for an instant that you could have so basely betrayed a woman who loved you. Oh, no! I knew it was only a poetical caprice on your part to prove the strength of my confidence. I knew you would return, and so I did not even put off my guests, but made all the preparations for the day appointed, so well did I read your character."
"Yes, Julia! you read truly," murmured Kalman, enchanted; "it was only a trial, which you have overcome, and my love will now be a thousand times stronger than ever."
Julia turned from her mirror, and, courtesying low, with a smile of bewitching coquetry, asked, "Am I pretty?"
"Oh, lovely!—Oh, angelic!" murmured the poet, throwing himself at Julia's feet.
At that instant Uncle Nanasy entered to announce that the reverend gentleman had arrived for the ceremony.
Julia poured some Ess bouquet on her handkerchief, and, taking Nanasy's arm, who stepped forward à pas de menuet, she descended to the apartment where the guests were assembled.