"And _that's_ what you call the best?" interrupted Granmar, with one of her sudden flank movements, "to have him gone away off no one knows where--Annunziata's own precious little nephew--taken by the pirates--yam! Sold as a slave--yam! Killed in the war! Oh, Pippo! poor Pippo! poor little Pipp, Pipp, Pipp!" "And so I thought I'd try to go to the shop by the day," Prudence went on, when this yell had ceased; "they want me to come and cut out. I shouldn't go until after your breakfast, of course; and I could leave cold things out, and Nounce would cook you something hot at noon; then I should be home myself every night in time to get your supper." "And so that's the plan--I'm to be left alone here with an idiot while you go flouncing your heels round Assisi! Flounce, cat! It's a wonder the dead don't rise in their graves to hear it. But we buried my Annunziata too deep for that--yam!--otherwise she'd 'a been here to tear your eyes out. An old woman left to starve alone, her own precious grandmother, growing weaker and weaker, and pining and pining. Blessed stomach, do you hear--do you hear, my holy, blessed stomach, always asking for so little, and now not even to get that? It's turned all a mumble of cold just thinking of it--yam! I, poor sufferer, who have had to stand your ugly face so long--I _so_ fond of beauty! You haven't got but twenty-four hairs now; you know you haven't--yam! I've got more than you twenty times over--hey! _that_ I have." And Granmar, tearing off her cap, pulled loose her coarse white hair, and grasping the ends of the long locks with her crooked fingers, threw them aloft with a series of shrill halloos. "I won't go to the shop," said Prudence. "Mercy on us, what a noise! I say I won't go to the shop. There! do you hear?" "Will you be here every day of your life at twelve o'clock to cook me something that won't poison me?" demanded Granmar, still hallooing. "Yes, yes, I promise you." Even Granmar believed Prudence's yes; her yea was yea and her nay nay to all the family. "You cook me something this very minute," she said, sullenly, putting on her cap askew. "Why, you've only just got through your supper!" exclaimed Prudence, astonished, used though she was to Granmar's abdominal capacities, by this sudden demand. "You won't? Then I'll yell again," said Granmar. And yell she did. "Hold up--do; I believe you now," said Prudence. She fanned the dying coals with a straw fan, made up the fire, and prepared some griddle-cakes. Granmar demanded fig syrup to eat with them; and devoured six. Filled to repletion, she then suffered Prudence to change her day cap for a nightcap, falling asleep almost before her head touched the pillow.