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, and thrice striking her
breast.

"I take back every word I said. I do not hate him. I would not hurt
him--I would not even stick a pin in him--if I had him at my mercy.
No--I would do anything I could to help him. I would give him anything I
had that he could want. I would give him my coral rosary. I would give
him"--she hesitated, struggled, and at last, drawing a deep breath,
gritting her teeth, in supreme renunciation--"yes, I would give him my
tame kid," she forced herself to pronounce, with a kind of desperate