"I didn't mean that; I don't want to go anyhow; I've got too much rheumatism. You don't know," she went on, drawn out of herself for a moment by the need of sympathy--"you don't know how it does grip me at night sometimes, Jo Vanny! No; you go to the supper, and tell me all about it afterwards; I like to hear you tell about things just as well as to go myself." Jo Vanny passed his hand through his curly locks with an air of desperation. "There it is again--my gift of relating, of narrative; it follows me wherever I go. What will become of me with such talents? I shall never die in my bed; nor have my old age in peace." "You go 'long!" said Prudence (or its Italian equivalent). She gave him a push, laughing. Jo Vanny drew down his cap, put his hands deep in his pockets, and thus close-reefed scudded down the hill in the freezing wind to the shelter of the streets below. By seven o'clock Nounce and Granmar were both asleep; it was the most comfortable condition in such weather. Prudence adjusted her lamp, put on her strong spectacles, and sat down to sew. The great brick stove gave out no warmth; it was not intended to heat the room; its three yards of length and one yard of breadth had apparently been constructed for the purpose of holding and heating one iron pot. The scaldino at her feet did not keep her warm; she put on her Highland shawl. After a while, as her head (scantily covered with thin white hair) felt the cold also, she went to get her bonnet. As she took it from the box she remembered Beppa's speech, and the pang came back; in her own mind that bonnet had been the one link that still united her with her old Ledham respectability, the one possession that distinguished her from all these "papish" peasants, with their bare heads and frowzy hair. It was not new, of course, as it had come with her from home. But what signified an old-fashioned shape in a community where there were no shapes of any kind, new or old? At least it was always a bonnet. She put it on, even now from habit pulling out the strings carefully, and pinning the loops on each side of her chin. Then she went back and sat down to her work again. At eleven o'clock Granmar woke. "Yam! how cold my legs are! Denza, are you there? You give me that green shawl of yours directly; precisely, I am dying." Prudence came out from behind her screen, lamp in hand. "I've got it on, Granmar; it's so cold setting up sewing. I'll get you the blanket from my bed." "I don't want it; it's as hard as a brick. You give me that shawl; if you've got it on, it'll be so much the warmer." "I'll give you my other flannel petticoat," suggested Prudence. "And I'll tear it into a thousand pieces," responded Granmar, viciously. "You give me that shawl, or the next time you leave Nounce alone here, _she_ shall pay for it." Granmar was capable of frightening poor little Nounce into spasms. Prudence took off the shawl and spread it over the bed, while Granmar grinned silently.