The woman took hold of the bridle, the animal having been hired from the Dejases, and led it towards the white house. This house, formerly the property of a merchant who had failed, had been bought at public sale a few years before. It was large and commodious, with a portico in front that gave it an almost seignorial air, but which was used as a promenade by Aunt Martina's chickens and pigs. It was an inappropriate dwelling for rough shepherds like the Dejases, as was shown by its rude furnishings, composed mainly of high clumsy wooden bedsteads, roughly fashioned chests, and heavy chairs and stools. Aunt Martina was seated on the portico, spinning--she could spin even in the dark--when Maria Chicca approached, leading the horse. The house was entirely unlighted, Brontu and the men being off at the sheepfolds, while Aunt Martina never kept a servant. She had other sons and daughters, all married, with whom she lived in a constant state of warfare on account of her miserly habits. Whenever there was any especial stress of work, she got in some of the neighbours to help. Often Giovanna and her mother were hired in this way, being paid in stale or injured farm produce. The Eras, however, were too poor to refuse anything they could get. "Well, what was the result?" asked the old woman, laying the spindle and a little ball of flax on the bench beside her. She had a thin, nasal voice; round, light eyes, placed close together; a delicate, aquiline nose, and lips that were still full and red. "You are crying, Maria Chicca. I saw those two poor women arrive, but I was afraid to go and ask, because I dreamed last night that he had been sentenced to penal servitude." "Ah, no! they have given him twenty-seven years' imprisonment." Aunt Martina appeared to be disappointed; not, indeed, that she bore Costantino any ill-will, but because she had a firm belief in the infallibility of her dreams. She took the horse by the bridle, saying: "I will go to the Eras' this evening, if I possibly can, but I'm not sure. There's a man coming, he who worked for Basile Ledda; he is going to hire out to us. He was one of the witnesses; but I believe he's back, isn't he?" "Yes, I think he is," said the other. And, returning to the cottage, she began at once to relate how Aunt Martina felt very sorry; and how she had dreamed that Costantino had got penal servitude; and that Giacobbe Dejas--he was a poor relation of the other Dejases--was going to work for them. Giovanna, who was nursing the child, and gazing down at it sorrowfully, did not so much as raise her eyes. Aunt Bachissia, on the contrary, asked innumerable questions: Had she found the old Dejas alone? Was she spinning,--spinning there in the dark?--etc., etc. "Listen," she said to Giovanna. "She may be here this evening." Giovanna neither moved nor looked up. "My soul! do you hear me?" cried the mother angrily. "She may come down this evening." "Who?" asked Giovanna, in the tone of a person just awake.