Grumbling thus, he got out; but the motor wouldn't start. The engine was as sullenly silent as Aunt Kathryn. For ten minutes, perhaps, the Prince tried this device and that--no doubt missing Joseph; but at last he gave up in despair. "It is no use," he groaned. "I am spending myself for nothing. If you will sit quietly here for a few moments, I will go ahead to that house where the light is, to see if I can get you ladies taken in, and the car hauled into a place where I can work at it." "What language do they speak here?" I asked, a chill of desolation upon me. "Slavic," he answered. "But I can talk it a little. I shall get on, and you will see me again almost at once." So saying, he was off, and I was alone with the statue of Aunt Kathryn. At first I thought that, whatever happened, I wouldn't be the one to begin a conversation, but the silence and deepening darkness were too much for my nerves. "Oh, Aunt Kathryn, don't let's be cross to each other any longer," I pleaded. "I'm tired of it, aren't you? And oh, what wouldn't I give to be back in sweet Ragusa with Beechy and--and the others!" Still not a word. It seemed incredible that she could bear malice so; but there was no cure for it. If she would not be softened by that plea of mine, nothing I could say would melt her. I should have liked to cry, for it was so lonely here, and so dreadful to be estranged from one's only friend. But that would have been too childish, and I took what comfort I could from Airole's tiny presence. A quarter of an hour passed, perhaps, and then the Prince came back accompanied by a man so huge that the tall Austrian seemed a boy beside him. They looked at the car, communicating by gestures, and then the Prince said, if we would walk to the house the woman there would receive us, while he and his companion pushed the automobile into a shed which the man had. I made no further attempt to extract a relenting word from Aunt Kathryn, as we tramped side by side along the road. Reaching a two-storied stone box of a house, she dropped behind at the doorway, leaving me to confront a hard-faced woman in a white jacket, with a graceful head-dress half-hiding her black hair. In one hand she had a partly finished stocking with knitting-needles in it; in the other she held a candle in a quaintly made iron candlestick. Something she said to us in a strange, but rather soft-sounding language, of which I couldn't understand one syllable; but seeing my hopelessly blank expression she smiled, nodded, and motioned us to cross the threshold. The room was bare, with a floor of pounded earth. There was a wooden table in it, a few shelves, and a long bench; but beyond was a more attractive interior, for in an inner apartment she had lighted a fire of sticks on a rude hearth.