"I am going, I am going, and I will not stop till I get to Poland. I know that you are very fond of me, children; yet for all that you would like to see two foreign lands lying between me and you."
And at that time two foreign lands really did lie between Transylvania and Poland. The chroniclers called them Hungary and Turkey.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The mummery receives its due punishment; nevertheless, Mercy and Compassion come to the mummer's aid, and deliver her out of all her troubles.
When Valentine got home to Kassa, he introduced his beloved Milly to his mother with these words:
"My dear lady mother! you used to say that if she whom I love were even a poor serving maid, you would not consider her origin too curiously, but if only she had a good heart, would accept her as your daughter-in-law. Well! See now, I've brought you my beloved wife, and here she is!"
Milly's face, we may add, was still terribly disfigured by the freckles which the wolf's milk flower juice had eaten into her skin.
Good Dame Sarah smote her hands together.
"Well, my dear son! I'll only say that if this was the young person for whose sake you could desert your mother, and rather endure the Turkish slavery than renounce her and play her false—then, I say you are as immovable as Mount Sion itself; and if you can really love this young person so very much she must have within her hundreds of good qualities."