She opened a door that she had never passed in the years she had lived in that apartment, and descended a narrow stone stair that wound in a steep spiral, lighted at each turn by a small hole pierced in the outer wall. Down and down—it seemed interminable, but was, in reality, two stories and a half. The landing was in a dim store-room a little below the ground level, and used as a cellar. From this a passage and door led into a small court enclosed between an angle of the house and a high wall, like a room with the ceiling taken off. Here a spout of water flowed into a double fountain-basin, where the girl stood washing and beating linen on the stone border. As she worked, steadily, and too much absorbed to see her mistress standing near her, tears rolled down her face, and dropped one by one on the clothes in her hands. The Signora looked a moment, astonished and shocked. Was this the girl who had come and gone from early morning cheerfully at her bidding, and who had smiled as she served the table within half an hour? She stood awhile looking at her, then quietly withdrew, and, going up-stairs again, rang a hand-bell from the window. Annunciata came up immediately, quite as usual, with no sign of tears in her face, except a slight flush of the eyelids, and made her usual inquiry: “_Che vuole?_”—What does she wish for? “I have several things to say,” her mistress replied. “I came out first to thank you for having given us such a beautiful breakfast. Everything was well done. I forgot you were at the fountain.” The smile came readily, and with it the ready word: “It pleased her?”—always the ceremonious third person. “And now I want to ask you something,” the Signora went on kindly. “Sit down. If you do not like to tell me, you need not. But I should be very sorry if you had any trouble, especially anything in which I could help you, and did not let me know. You have been crying. Are you willing to tell me what is the matter?” The girl looked as startled as if she had been caught in a crime, and began to stammer. “If it is something you do not want to tell me, I will not say any more about it,” her mistress went on. “You have a right to your privacy, as I have to mine. But if there is anything I can do for you, tell me freely.” There was a momentary struggle, then the tears started again, and all the story came out. Annunciata had received, three days before, news of the death of her only brother, who had died of fever in some little town a day’s journey from Rome, and was already buried when she learned first that he was sick. The Signora listened with astonishment and compunction. For three days this girl had gone about with a bitter grief hidden in her heart, missing no duty, submitting, perhaps, to a little fault-finding now and then, and weeping only when she believed herself unobserved, and all the time, while she suffered, ministering to and witnessing the pleasures of others.