Look! I give them both to you."
"Wherefore, Anicza?"
"Take the things, I say, and keep them, for my guardian angel knows, I
have told him, that with me they are not in a safe place. You do not
know me yet."
The girl burst out crying, and Fatia Negra could no longer soothe her
with kisses, and then old Onucz poked his gray shaggy head through the
doorway and said: "I have been paid already, Domnule, have you?"
Fatia Negra stroked the girl's hair and face and whispered her not to
take on so.
The stitches of the old Roumanian's patience now, at last, gave way
altogether. "Domnule," said he, "would you not, if I earnestly besought
you to do so, begin to think of the day on which you intend to become my
daughter's husband?"
For a moment Fatia Negra seemed thunderstruck; then he recovered himself
and replied in a calm but menacing voice: "If ever it occurs to you to
put the question to me again, your head will reach home an hour earlier
than yourself."
The old man made no reply, but he seized the girl by the hand and led
her away with him, returning to the mill with her by the same way that
he had come. They found their horses by the alder trees and remounted.
It was a fine clear night, and Onucz told his daughter to ride in front.
They had now divided the coined gold into two portions. When they had
once more reached the ridge of the mountain the old man pronounced
Anicza's name in a low tone.
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