"And all that is as nothing compared with her riches. Why, when she climbs up a nut tree to hang out the clothes, she leaves nothing behind her that she can call her own!"
Everyone looked forward to the day when Dame Sarah would present her daughter-in-law to her acquaintances, the notabilities of Kassa.
And what would they have said if they only could have seen her in a dress of her own making!
The anxiously awaited Sunday dawned at last. In the early morning, however, a sergeant came and tapped at Valentine's window, awoke him from his slumbers, and told him that his captain, Count Hommonai, commanded him to mount his horse at once, and ride into the market place fully armed.
Valentine was still a soldier, a corporal in fact. Obey he must. He therefore took leave of his mother and his wife, armed himself, and was at his post at the appointed time. Thence, without showing the slightest regard for the sacredness of the Sabbath, the captain marched off his troops straightway, for tidings had come that a host of Turks had penetrated as far as Naggy Ida, burning all the hamlets in their way. Count Hommonai, therefore, did not take very long to reflect, but quickly collected two hundred horsemen, and set out from Kassa to chastise the Turkish marauders.
Thus it was that Milly or Michal was left entirely in charge of Dame Sarah.
Early in the morning the young lady put on the new dress that was so admirably adapted to spoil her pretty figure altogether. Then she prepared to go to church.
When she was quite ready, Dame Sarah said to her: "Take off that dress, you shall not go to church in that, but in another."
And with that she opened her lofty wardrobe and took out her own beautiful silk dress which she had worn in her younger days, her bodice embroidered with gold flowers, her apron fringed with broad lace, her costly cambric pocket-handkerchief, and gave them all to her daughter-in-law, and while she laced the bodice on to Michal's slim waist, she said, with great self-complacency: "I was just as slim myself, dear, in the first years of my marriage. In those days this was my gala costume, I've never worn it since."
Then she put her beautiful gold-laced coif on Michal's head, and praised at the same time her daughter-in-law's lovely hair. That, at any rate, was a thing of beauty, let her face be never so ugly.