"You shut up!" said the child sharply, turning on her sister. "No, I'm not going to shut up. He's a Freemason; he won't have his children baptised, or be married in church. That's the way of it; he'll not marry in church." "The young lady is well informed," said Uncle Efes Maria, polished as usual. Thereupon Aunt Porredda, who had almost shrieked aloud at the word "Freemason," waved both arms in the air, and burst out: "Yes, a Freemason! One of those people who pray to the devil. Upon my word, I believe my granddaughter there would just as leave have him! We are all on the road to perdition here, and why not? There's Grazia, forever reading bad books, and those infernal papers, till now she doesn't want to go to confession any more! Ah, those prohibited books! I lie awake all night thinking of them. But now, this is what I want to say: Grazia reads bad books; Paolo,--you see him, that one over there, Doctor Pededdu,--well, he studied on the Continent where they don't believe in God any more; now that's all right, at least, it isn't, it's all wrong, but you can understand a little why those two poor creatures have stopped believing in God. But the rest of us, who don't know anything about books and who have never in our lives ridden on a rail-road,--that devil's horse,--why should _we_ cease to believe in God, in our kind Saviour, who died for us on the cross? Why? why? tell me why. You there, Giovanna Era, tell me why you should be willing to marry a man by civil ceremony when you already have a husband living?" The final clause of Aunt Porredda's oration fell with startling effect upon her audience. Grazia, who, with a smile upon her lips, had been busily engaged in rolling pieces of bread into little pellets, raised her head quickly, and the smile died away; Paolo, who, likewise smiling, had been fitting the blade of a knife in and out of the prongs of his fork, straightened himself with a brusque movement; and Uncle Efes Maria turned his dull, round face towards Giovanna, and fixed her with an impassive stare. Giovanna herself, the object of this wholly unlooked-for attack, though she flushed crimson, replied with cynical indifference: "I haven't any husband, my dear Aunt Porredda. Ask your son over there." "My son!" exclaimed the other angrily. "I have no son. He's a child of the devil!" It almost seemed as though Giovanna had succeeded in throwing the responsibility of her act upon Paolo, because he had won her case for her! Every one laughed at Aunt Porredda's outbreak, even Minnia, and the servant who entered the room at that moment, carrying the cheese. Notwithstanding her wrath, Aunt Porredda took the dish and handed it politely to her guests.