Even after he lay down on his bed he could not but wonder if Roumania was yet to be a great nation, if Transylvania now belonging to Hungary, if Bukovina now a part of Austria, and perhaps Bessarabia, though claimed by Russia--all with a large Roumanian population, would not be restored to her. Finally he fell into a restless sleep in which he dreamed that he was already a man and fighting that those of his own blood might be rescued from foreign governments who despised them and tyrannized over them. CHAPTER XV THE NATIONAL DANCE When Jonitza awoke he found black coffee and delicious white twists awaiting him. He dressed quickly that he might be in time for the hearty breakfast that follows. It was a holiday, and so later he had a ride behind four horses abreast with his father, first along the sluggish Dimbovitza River on which Bukurest is situated, then into the hills to an old three-towered Cathedral, one of the very few antiquities to be seen in Bukurest. From here the city looked very attractive with its metal plated steeples and cupolas, its many squares and tree-lined avenues. Then the horses carried them still further away to a neighboring hamlet with its pretty rustic vine-embowered houses, their dark roofs forming verandas on which clay benches invited one to rest. Peasant women drawing water from wells by the wayside greeted them; children tending geese and pigs smiled at them, and a man building a wattled fence invited them into his little country house all blue and white. When they reached home and had had luncheon, Jonitza found that the whole family but himself had been invited to some entertainment and that he was to be left with Maritza and the servants. He had begun to yawn and to wonder how he would spend the day, when Maritza solved the problem for him. "Your mother said that I might take you to see the _Hora_ danced," she announced. The _Hora_ is the Roumanian national dance. "Oh, good!" cried Jonitza, throwing a book that he was holding up to the ceiling and catching it again. Soon after, Maritza's brother came for his sister. He was a rather tall, dark-eyed man and dressed in spotless white linen trousers with a ruffle around the ankles and deep pointed pockets in front, embroidered in red. To be sure to be on time they started at once, Maritza laughingly repeating that they "must dance on Sunday to keep the creak out of their bones on Monday." A half hour's walk brought them to a modest section of Bukurest, where, in a square opposite a tavern, a host of peasant men and women in their gayest costumes, were already gathered. Knowing how eager Maritza was to dance, Jonitza urged her to leave him on the lawn. "I shall be all right here under the trees," he said.