"The lawyer is waiting for you," said Aunt Bachissia, and then the guards pushed the women gently aside. "Stand back, good people! Out of the way!" said one, and they led the prisoner off, still smiling back at Giovanna, his gleaming white teeth showing between lips that were still round and full, albeit colourless. Thus he disappeared from view between his stony-faced conductors. Aunt Bachissia now, in her turn, dragged off Giovanna, who wanted to follow her husband, and insisted that she should return first to the Porrus' for breakfast. They found the courtyard bathed in sunlight. It played upon the shining leaves of the grape-vines, from which hung bunches of unripe grapes like pale-green marble; the swallows disporting in it were moved to pour forth floods of song; and it tricked out Uncle Efes Maria, preparing to set out for the country on his chestnut horse. How full of light and cheerfulness seemed that little, enclosed spot, with its low stone-wall, beyond which could be seen a broad expanse of open country, stretching away to the distant horizon! The children sat on the threshold of the kitchen door, devouring their breakfast of bread soaked in _cafe-au-lait_; Grazia had taken hers to a retired corner, possibly in order not to be seen engaged upon anything so prosaic by the student-uncle. He, meanwhile, stood in his shirt-sleeves in the middle of the enclosure, gulping down the contents of a great bowl. "How large is St. Peter's?" asked Aunt Porredda, who was polishing the doctor's shoes, and marvelling the while to hear of the wonderful things he had seen. "How large? Why, as large as a _tanca_.[3] You can't even pray there; no one could say his prayers in a _tanca_. The angels are as large as that gateway--the littlest ones--those that hold the holy-water basins." "Ah! then you have to go upstairs to reach the water?" "No; they are on their knees, I think. Give me a little more _cafe-au-lait_, mamma; is there any?" "Of course there is. It seems to me you have come back very hungry, my little Paolo; you're a regular shark!" "Do you know how much this breakfast would cost in Rome? One franc! not a centime less; and then the milk is all water!" "The Lord preserve us! Why, that is frightful!" "What do you think? I saw some dolphins at sea; the strangest-looking creatures----Oh! here are our guests; good-morning; what have you been about?" Giovanna described the meeting with her husband, and was beginning to cry again, when Aunt Porredda took her by the hand and led her into the kitchen. "You have need of all your strength to-day, my soul," said she, setting before her a large cup of _cafe-au-lait_. A little later the two women started out again for the Court of Assize; Paolo promising to join them there. "Courage!" said Aunt Porredda, as she took leave of Giovanna, and the latter heard her husband's sentence in the kind hostess's tone, and went off with the look of a whipped dog.