When we came into the village bright and early Sunday morning everybody was in holiday dress. The red petticoats of the matrons flashed along the sidewalks, but half-shaded by the small trees; groups of gay maidens, each with wild-flowers in hand, hurried along to church, where companies of men in immaculate linen and stiff embroidered coats stood in solemn rows like supernumeraries on a stage. The church was already partly full when we entered, and there was a bustle of many people settling themselves in their places, and a constant stream of worshippers coming in at different doors. We sat there marvelling at the strange dresses, enchanted by the brilliant colors, all the while unable to realize that this was the customary weekly ceremony, not a dramatic pageant arranged for our benefit. The sexes sat apart, and the married and the single each had a portion of the pews reserved for them, and each entered the church by a different door. Near the altar the marriageable maidens came clumping in with their red boots, always in parties of three or more, each with a little bright-colored rug, a prayer-book, and a bunch of flowers. Spreading out their rugs on the stone floor, they kneeled down in rows facing the altar, and, after carefully arranging their plaited Sunday chemises so as to cover their feet, remained a few moments in the attitude of prayer, and then rose and took their seats. Of all that great congregation there was not one who did not wear the costume, and, with the exception of some of the ornaments and finer textiles, all the articles of dress were of home production. Every thread of the linen and wool had been spun on the busy distaff as the women went to and from the fields to their work, and woven in the winter-time, when the clatter of the loom is heard in every house. [Illustration: HUNGARIAN GIRLS AT BEZDÁN] During the sermon we hurried away to be present at the close of the church-service in the neighboring village of Bezdán, inhabited by Magyars. It was a few miles away, and we arrived only in time to see the quiet streets enlivened with people totally different in type and dress from those we had just left. In the flickering shadow of the trees, under the noonday sun, the women strode off homeward with an [Illustration: ERDÖD]