But his wife rushed from the room. He looked long after her, then glanced at the workmen, took up the knife with a nervous movement, and began quickly to cut out the sandals. The workmen, who had heard the words exchanged, and seen the abrupt departure of the mistress, kept complete silence and busied themselves with their work. Master Dinu finished cutting the skins. "You might hurry yourselves a little when you know the work ought to be ready," he said to the men, and departed, hanging his head. "Very unhappy is Master Dinu," said Iotza, looking after him. "Why?" one of them asked him. "Why? Because those are the sharpest words I have ever heard coming from his mouth." Dinner was unusually quiet, only the little boy whined and asked for first one thing and then another. His mother gave him one or two raps over the knuckles to make him sit still and be silent, but the child began to cry, and she angrily sent him into the next room. Master Dinu said never a word and his daughter, Ana, looked round her in a frightened manner, and would like to have asked what had happened to-day to make them all so downcast. Sandu had seen her many times, but he had never seen her well. He knew she was the master's daughter. He greeted her when she came to the table, but speak to her or look her really in the face, that, up till to-day, he had never done. But when he saw her looking sadly, now at her father, now at her mother, and then at the others seated round the table, he wanted to say something to her to cheer her and make her laugh. But he had nothing to tell her, he could not find a word, and when their eyes met he felt as though he were being swept away by a storm, and carried he knew not whither. Ana was so beautiful and so graceful. With her white hands and her fair face one would never have believed her to be the daughter of an artisan. Her big blue eyes, so full of kindness, were shaded by black eyelashes, and when she laughed one's heart glowed in the joyous sound, and one wished one could often hear her laughing. Iotza--he had been workman with Dinu for a long time--when the mistress was out of the house, had more than once asked her to mend something for him, and not infrequently she had brought him drink from the cellar when the frost was sharp and he had complained that he could not stand the cold. And with all his prudence Iotza had let drop a word in the workshop in praise of Ana's kindness. And so it came about that they all waited for the mistress to go out that they might speak to Ana and ask her one thing or another. Only Sandu had never been to her. And that was why he especially wanted now to divert her thoughts and make her smile. Her eyes troubled him, and he felt happier when he found himself back in the workshop.