"What is it, my girl?" asked Ragna kindly. "Signora," she answered, with lowered head, "I do not know how to say it nor what you will think of me, but I have come to give notice, I wish to go." "You wish to go!" exclaimed Ragna with the greatest surprise, "you wish to leave me? Why, Carolina, what in the world do you mean by that?" The girl stood nervously rolling and unrolling a corner of her apron between her fingers, her eyes on the floor. "It is just that, Signora, I wish to go." "Are you going to be married?" "No, Signora!" "Then why? Are you not happy here? You have been with me so long, to leave suddenly like this, what is the matter?" "Don't ask me Signora, I--I can't stay." "Carolina," said Ragna sternly, "look at me!" The maid raised unwilling eyes to her mistress's face. "Don't you know that that is no way to speak to me? Now tell me frankly, why it is you wish to leave me after all these years. Have I not been kind to you? What cause have you for complaint? Think, what will Mimmo do without you?" The girl began to cry and dabbed ineffectually at her eyes with her apron. "Stop crying and tell me!" cried Ragna, exasperated. "Signora mia, Signora mia," sobbed the maid, "I do not want to tell you, I do not want to add to your troubles. Please don't ask me!" Ragna's face grew hard, she more than guessed what was coming. "I command you to speak out and hide nothing," she said in a tense voice. "It is on account of the Signor Padrone, Signora." "Ah!" said Ragna, "go on, what has he done?" "Signora," said the maid hanging her head and working her toe in and out of the heelless slipper she still sometimes wore in the house. "The Signor Padrone used to say things to me when he passed me, and sometimes he would chuck me under the chin or pinch my arm, but I thought nothing of it, it is the way of many Signori and means nothing." "Go on," said Ragna coldly, as the girl paused. "Well, Signora, he got more pressing, and I kept out of his way all I could, and then one night he surprised me in my room--" "Why did you not call out?" "I did, Signora, but you know where my room is." Ragna did,--down at the end of a long corridor shut off by a door from the rest of the house. Why, oh why had she been so blind?