atter?" she cheerfully inquired.

"Ah," sighed Annunziata, deeply, with another portentous head-shake, "I
wish I knew."

Maria Dolores laughed. "Sit down," she suggested, making room beside her
on the moss, "and try to think."

Annunziata sat down, curled herself up. "Something has happened to
Prospero," she said, _de profundis_.

"Oh?" asked Maria Dolores. "What?" She seemed heartlessly cheerful, and
even rather amused.

"Ah," sighed Annunziata, "that is what I wish I knew. He has had a
friend to pass the day with him."

"Yes?" said Maria Dolores. "I expect I saw his friend walking with him
this morning?"

"_Gia_," said Annunziata. "They have been walking about all day. _His_
friend Prospero he calls him. But he doesn't look very prosperous. He
looks like a slate-pencil. He is long and thin, and dark and cold, and
hard, just like a slate-pencil. He would not stay the night, though we
had a bed prepared for him. He is going to Rome, and Prospero has driven
him to the railway station at Cortello. I hate him," wound up
Annunziata, simply.

"Mercy!" exclaimed Maria Dolores, opening her eyes. "Why do you hate
him?"

"Because he must have said or done something very unkind to Prospero,"
answered Annunziata. "Oh, you should see him. He is so sad--so sad and
so angry. He keeps scowling, and shaking his head, and saying things in
English, which I cannot understand, but I am sure they are sad things
and angry things. And he would not eat any dinner,--no, not that much,"
(Annunziata measured off an inch on her finger), "he who always eats a
great deal,--_eh, ma molto, molto_," and, separating her hands, she
measured off something like twenty inches in the air.

Maria Dolores couldn't help laughing a little at this. But afterwards
she said, on a key consolatory, "Ah, well, he has gone away now, so let
us hope your friend Prospero will promptly recover his accustomed
appetite."

"Yes," said Annunziata, "I hope so. But oh, that old slate-pencil man,
how I hate him! I would like to--_uhhh!_" She clenched her little white
fist, and shook it, threateningly, vehemently, while her eyes fiercely
flashed. ... Next instant, however, her mien entirely changed. Like a
light extinguished, all the fierceness went out of her face, making way
for what seemed pain and terror. "There," she cried, pain and terror in
her voice, "I have offended God. Oh, I am so sorry, so sorry. My sin, my
sin, my sin," she murmured, bowing her head, an