"When sixteen, she considered it quite a lift in life to be promoted to the position of waiting-maid to the wealthy Mrs. Maltravers, instead of trudging round the town with her mother's baskets of clear-starched garments to the various houses which patronized her labor. "Mrs. Maltravers was old, and fanciful, and she good-naturedly taught the girl how to speak well, and how to dress neatly, and gave her that perception of the true value of elegance which only the rich can give. "Dolores liked to be well dressed, and to sway her humble court by the cleverness of her conversation, and Mrs. Maltravers was surprised and amused at her aptness in such branches, and taught her with pleasure. "So Dolores thankfully made the most of her position, and became much too fine a lady for the rough home she had left, and was flouted at by her rude brothers and awkward sisters, until she cut herself adrift from them all. "Mr. and Mrs. Maltravers went to Europe to travel for two years, and the waiting-maid went with them. "Dolores liked the strange life, and learned more and more every day. "At last the travelers came to Austria, and pleased with the rich, warm summer of the plain they stopped in Hungary for six months. "The name of the town was--Szegedin; you have some acquaintance with it, count; you will take especial interest in a narrative that unfolds its climax in your birthplace. "Our pretty Dolores had here the fortune to fall in love with a man of the barbarous name of Ladislaus Schmolnitz; and when you learn that, added to his shocking name, he followed the profession of a tailor, you will only wonder at little Dolores' infatuation. "But this little man, so handsome, clever, and bland, met her often on the banks of the Theiss, and talked sentiment, and poetry and other pretty nonsense in the shocking language of Hungary to simple Dolores, and made her forget that he was a wretched little tailor. "And he taught her to prattle in Hungarian, and then he asked her to love him, and she did love him--ah, friends! so passionately, so heroically, that I only wonder that her splendid love did not ennoble his. "Ladislaus Schmolnitz, the Szegedin tailor, ran off with Dolores, the waiting-maid, and laughed at the pursuit of the shocked Maltravers, who grudged the girl to a little rascal of a Hun. "But Madame and Monsieur Schmolnitz lived together for two years and were very happy. "Very happy, dear friends, notwithstanding the poverty-stricken shifts which they were at to keep the wolf from the door. "So happy, dear friend, that foolish Dolores wished for no other heaven than the heaven of the little tailor's love, and toiled, my heart how she toiled, to keep the treasure safe. "At last, Monsieur Schmolnitz saw a chance to rise in the world, and took his wife and baby-boy to Paris, where he energetically began to teach languages, having a clever turn that way.