As she spoke they entered the park, and the children gazed in wonder at its beauty. Swans floated on the miniature lakes; in the feathery green woods bloomed exquisite Persian lilacs, children played on the green grass beneath the willows or ran to and fro over the rustic bridges. On the Corso the fashionables drove up and down in the smartest of costumes, their turnouts as well appointed as any in Paris or London. The men were many of them in uniform, the women, some of them with slanting dark eyes almost like Japanese, were graceful and elegant. "The skating fêtes held in the park in winter are the most beautiful things you can imagine," said the Baroness. "The whole country is white with snow. Frost is in the air, the blood tingles with the cold. Ice kiosks are erected everywhere, and coloured lights are hung up until the whole place seems like fairyland, and the skaters, dressed from top to toe in furs, look like fairy people skimming over the ice." "It must be beautiful," said Marushka. "But what is that man playing?" "The _taragato_, the old-fashioned Magyar clarinet," was the answer, and the old instrument seemed to tell tales of warlike days, its deep tones rolling out like the wind of the forest. A boy near by played an impudent little _tilinka_ (flageolet), and Banda Bela said: "That never sounded like real music to me; only the violin sings. It is like the wind in the trees, the rustle of the grass on the moor, the dash of the waves on the shore, the voice of the mother to her child." "Banda Bela, you are poet as well as musician," said the Baroness. "You shall never go back to Harom Szölöhoz to live. You shall stay with me. I will sing to your music, and you shall study music till you are the greatest violin player in all Hungary." "When a Gypsy child comes into the world they say his mother lays him on the ground and at one side places a purse and at the other a violin," said Banda Bela. "To one side or other the baby will turn his head. If he turns to the purse he will be a thief, if he turns to the violin he will earn his living by music. My mother said she would give me no chance to choose ill, but an old woman near by laid forth both the purse and the violin and I turned my head to the violin and reached for it with my baby hand. When they placed the bow in my hand I grasped it so tight they could scarce take it from me." "Banda Bela," said Marushka, and her tone was pettish. "You like your violin better than you do me!" The boy laughed. "My violin has earned you many a supper, Little One; do not dislike it!" "Oh, Your Graciousness, what are those strange things?" cried Marushka. "They are not automobiles, are they?"