The people of our little valley maintain a high school for boys and a seminary for girls, as well as a charity school for the poor." "Then your people must be rich." "No, not rich.

There are no lords or ladies among them, and they have suffered more from the ravages of war than any other community in Hungary." "But how," asked Blanka, "can they afford to dress their young women in silks and laces, and give both boys and girls an education?
They must have some fairy talisman for conjuring wealth out of the rocks on which their houses stand." "And so they have.

Their talisman is industry, and out of their rocky soil they conjure riches in the shape of iron,--the best that can be found in all Transylvania.

The same men that fill the church every Sunday, in holiday attire, dig and delve under ground the remaining six days of the week.

Another secret of their modest wealth is their abstinence from strong drink.