"It is well I find you. Tell your aunt that the clothes are finished. She can send you to take them." "I will tell it to her." "It is to-morrow you leave?" "Yes, it is to-morrow." "And who takes you?" "I go with Yanni, the messenger." "Listen, Mattina," said the old woman, "I have stitched you a pocket into the brown frock. In the town it is not like here; sometimes you may have some money, or someone may send you a letter; you must have somewhere to put things." Mattina's eyes brightened. "A pocket!" she exclaimed, "like the big maids have!" "You are well nigh a big maid now!" The word pocket reminded Mattina of her sugared almonds. "Kyra Sophoula," she begged, "see, I have some sweets here. A sailor gave them to me, he said they were from a christening. Take them, you, and hide them away, and to-morrow after I go, take this little one to your house for a while, and give them to him. He cries when I leave him; and the others at the house, they torment him always. Do this for me, and may your children live to you!" The old woman took the twist of muslin and put it into her apron pocket. "Surely, I will, my daughter, surely I will." Then she lifted her pitcher which had filled, gurgled, and overflowed, set it carefully on the ledge, and turned to Zacharia who was struggling for what remained of his koulouri, with a woolly black puppy. "Come here, you little one!" Kyra Sophoula was a funny old woman, as brown and as wrinkled as a quince that has been hung up too long, but children never ran away from her, even the tiny ones. Zacharia successfully rescued the last remnant of the koulouri from the puppy's teeth, and came, looking up at her with round black baby eyes. "If a good little boy who does not cry ... a golden little boy, comes with me to my house to-morrow, I shall have ... two sugar comfits, and a whole dried fig to give him! And if this golden little child never cries at all, there will be some more comfits the next day! I wonder if I shall find a good little boy, like that?" Zacharia rubbed his black curls confidingly against the old woman's skirts, and murmured:-- "Me!" "Ah, we shall see fine things, that golden boy and I!" then turning to Mattina:-- "Tell me; your uncle Anastasi and his wife, have they found a good house in which you may serve?" "Not yet; my uncle sent a letter to say that it would be better if I did not go till September, because there are more people who change servants at that time, but my uncle Yoryi here, he says that I must go to my uncle Anastasi's now at once, and let them find a house for me to serve, when they can. He says he will keep the little one, but that I am a big girl, and that he has fed me long enough. It is true," she added gravely, "that my hunger is great." Kyra Sophoula nodded her head. "Yoryi is a poor man," she said, "also, he has daughters to marry." "Is it far to Athens?" asked Mattina.