a cap of antique brocade, from whence escaped waves of coal-black hair, she turned towards a basin of water standing on a chair, and began to bathe her face.

The two women looked at one another, and Aunt Porredda, taking her lips between her right thumb and forefinger in sign of silence, noiselessly left the room.

The other, accepting this hint, said nothing more, and when Giovanna had finished bathing, and had set her hair in order, silently led the way down the outer stair.

Night had fallen; warm, still, profound. The solitary yellow star had been followed by a multitude of glittering asterisks, and the Milky Way lay like a scarf of gauze embroidered with silver spangles. The air was heavy with the penetrating odour of new-mown hay.

In the courtyard, the crickets, hidden away in the trelliswork, kept up their shrill chirping; the ruminative horse still stamped with his iron-shod hoofs upon the stones, and from afar floated the melancholy note of a song.

The kitchen opened on the courtyard, as did a ground-floor bedroom sometimes used as a dining-room. Both doors were standing open.

In the kitchen, beside the lighted stove, stood Aunt Porredda engaged in preparing the macaroni for supper. A child, clad in a loose black frock, fair, untidy, and barefooted, was quarrelling with a stout little urchin, fat and florid like his grandmother.

The girl was swearing roundly, naming every devil in turn; while the boy tried to pinch her bare legs.

"Stop it," said Aunt Porredda. "There now, will you leave off, you naughty children?"

"Mamma Porru, she's cursing me; she said: 'Go to the devil who gave you birth.'"

"Minnia! what a way to talk!"

"Well, he stole my purse, the one with the picture of the Pope, that Uncle Paolo brought me——"

"It's not so, I didn't!" shouted the boy. "You'd better not be talking about stealing, Minnia," he added with a meaning look.

The girl became suddenly quiet, as though a spell had been cast over her, but presently her tormentor, seizing a long stick, tried to hook the curved handle around her legs. Minnia began to cry, and the grandmother faced about, ladle in hand.

"I declare, I'll beat you with this ladle, you wretched children! Just you wait a moment!" she cried, running at them. The children made a dash for the courtyard, and collided violently with Giovanna and her mother.

"What's all this? What's all this?"

"Oh, those children, they'll drive me wild! I believe the devil is in them," said Aunt Porredda from the doorway.

At this moment a slim little figure in black emerged from the main gateway leading into the street, calling excitedly: "They are coming, Grandmother; here they are now!"

"Well, let them come; you would do better, Grazia, to pay some attention to your brother and sister; they have been fighting like two cocks."

Grazia made no reply, but taking the iron candlestick from Aunt Bachissia she blew out the light, and hid it behind a bench in the kitchen, saying in a low voice: "You ought to be ashamed, Grandmother, to have such a looking candlestick, now that Uncle Paolo is here."

"Uncle Paolo! Well, I declare! Do you suppose he was brought up on gold?"

"He has been to Rome."

"To Rome! The idea! They only don't have lights like that there, because they have to buy their oil by the pennyworth. Here, we can use as much oil as we want."

"You must be green if you believe that!" said the girl; then, suddenly catching the sound of her grandfather's and uncle's voices, she flew to meet them, trembling with excitement.

"Good-evening, Giovanna; Aunt Bachissia, how goes it with you?" said the hearty voice of the student. "I? Very well, the Lord be praised! I was sorry to hear of your misfortune. Never mind, courage! Who knows? The sentence is to-morrow, is it not?"

He led the way into the room where the supper-table was laid, followed by the two women and the children, whom their uncle's presence filled with mixed terror and delight.

He was short and limped slightly, one foot being smaller than the other, and the leg somewhat shorter; this circumstance had earned him the nickname of Dr. Pededdu,[2] a jest which he took in very good part, declaring that it was far better to have one foot smaller than the other, rather than a head smaller than those of other people.

His fresh, round, smiling face, with its little blond moustache, was surmounted by a big, tattered black hat. He proclaimed himself a Socialist. Sitting down on the side of the bed, with both legs swinging, he threw an arm around each staring, open-mouthed child, and drew it to him, giving his attention meanwhile to Aunt Bachissia's recital of their misfortunes. From time to time, however, his gaze wandered to Grazia, the angles of whose girlish, undeveloped figure were accentuated by an ill-fitting black frock much too small for her. Her own hard, light-coloured orbs never left her uncle's face.

"Listen," said Aunt Bachissia, in her harsh voice, "I will tell you the whole story. Costantino Ledda had an uncle by blood, his own father's brother. His name was Basile Ledda, but they called him 'the Vulture'—may God preserve him in glory if he's not fast in the devil's clutches already—because he was so grasping. "He was a wretch, a regular yellow vulture. God may have forgiven him, but there, they say he starved his wife to death! He was Costantino's guardian; the boy had some money of his own, his uncle spent it all, and then began to ill-use him. He beat him, and sometimes he would tie him down between two stones in the open field, so that the bees would come and sting him on the eyes. Well, one day Costantino ran away; he was sixteen years old. For three years nothing was heard of him; he says he was working in the mines; I don't know, but anyhow, that's what he says."

"Yes, yes, he was working in the mines," interrupted Giovanna.

"I don't know," said the mother, pursing up her lips with an air of doubt, "well, anyway, the fact remains that one day, during the time that he was off, some one fired at Basile the Vulture out in the field. It is true he did have enemies. When Costantino came back he admitted that he had run away for fear he might be tempted to kill his uncle, he hated him so.

"Afterwards, though, he tried to make his peace with him, and succeeded too. But now listen to this, Paolo Porru——"

"Dr. Porru! Dr. Porreddu!" shouted the small nephew, correcting the guest. The latter, turning on the boy angrily, started to box his ears, whereupon Giovanna laughed. On beholding their heartbroken guest—she who up to that moment had been surrounded by a halo of romance and tragedy—actually laughing, the pale, lank Grazia broke into a nervous laugh as well, and then Minnia laughed, and then the boy, and then the student.

Aunt Bachissia glared about her, and, lifting one lean, yellow hand, was about to bring it down on some one—she had not quite decided whether her daughter or the boy—when Aunt Porredda appeared in the doorway, bearing a steaming dish of macaroni.

She was followed by Uncle Efes Maria Porru, a big, imposing-looking man, whose broad chest was uncomfortably contracted in a narrow blue velvet jacket. He was a peasant, but affected a literary turn; his large, colourless face resembled a mask of ancient marble; he wore a short, curling beard, and had thick lips always parted, and big, clear eyes.

"Come, sit down at once," said Aunt Porredda, planting the dish in the centre of the table.