The Baron turned to the woman and said: "This little girl saved your baby's life. Should you not do her some kindness?" "What could I do for her, Your High-Born Graciousness?" the woman asked. "That I leave to your good heart." The Baron had not dwelt upon his estates and managed his peasants for years without knowing peasant character. Threats would not move this woman, that he saw in a moment. "She is a Gypsy child," the woman said sullenly. Banda Bela spoke suddenly, for he had come close and heard what was said. "That she is not! She is Magyar. Deserted by the roadside, she was cared for by Gypsy folk. Does she look like a Gypsy? Would a Gypsy child wear a Christian medal upon her breast?" The boy's tone was sharp. Marushka heard nothing. She was playing with the baby. The woman looked from Marushka to the baby, then at the Baron, hesitating. "Let me see your pretty medal, child," she said at length, and Marushka untied the string and put the medal in the woman's hand. "I used to think it was my mother, but now I know it is Our Lady," said Marushka gently. The woman looked at it for a moment, then gave it back to the little girl and stood for a moment thinking. "High-Born Baron," she said at last, "I will speak. Those it might harm are dead. The little girl who saved my baby I will gladly serve, but I will speak alone to the ears of the Baron and his gracious lady." "Very well," said the Baron as he led the woman aside. "Škultéty Yda is my name, Your Graciousness," she said. "I was foster-sister to a high-born lady in the Province in which lies Buda-Pest. I loved my mistress and after her marriage I went with her to the home of her husband, a country place on the Danube. There I met Hödza Ludevit, who wished to marry me and take me to America, for which he had long saved the money. He hated all nobles and most of all the High-Born Count, because the Count had once struck him with his riding whip. Then the Countess' little daughter came and I loved her so dearly that I said that I would never part from her. Ludevit waited for me two years, then he grew angry and said, 'To America I will go with or without you.' Then he stole the little baby and sent me word that he would return her only on condition that I go at once to America with him. To save the little golden-haired baby I followed him beyond the sea to America. He swore to me that he had returned little Marushka to her parents.