"Good!" said Kyra Demetroula, "I will take you there to-morrow early, to speak with the lady. Now come and eat! There is plenty left of the artichoke stew, and I will warm it up for you." III So, early the next morning, after the boy from the grocer's round the street had given the necessary directions, they found themselves in the neighbourhood of the Piræus Road, and Mattina toiled after her aunt, up narrow dusty streets in search of the house where a new serving maid was wanted. She was very hot and uncomfortable, for her aunt had insisted on her wearing her new brown frock with the pocket in it, as being by far the best in her bundle. This it certainly was, but also very thick and warm and the heat was coming fast that year. Though the Saint's day of St. Constantine and St. Helen was till some time off, the May wreaths--which are hung over all balconies or front doors of houses in Athens on the first day of May and left hanging there until replaced by the fresh wreath, the following year--were already hanging withered and yellow from the house doors and balconies. After many wrong turnings, and many inquiries at neighbouring grocers' and bakers' shops, the aunt and the niece stopped before the wide open door of a house in a street behind the Piræus Road. The narrow entry certainly looked as if it were a long time since the last serving maid had scrubbed it. A woman with a long face and a fat body was standing just inside with a packet of macaroni in her hands. "What do you want?" she called out sharply. Kyra Demetroula advanced a step. "Good day to you, Kyria," and as she said it she pushed Mattina a little forward. "They told us that you wanted a girl to serve you, and because we have heard much good of your house, I have brought you my niece." "Your niece! What? That child! Much work she can do! Who sent you?" "It was the butcher in the big road here, who told us that...." "Come inside! Let me see her better! I should never think of such a small maid but that it is a bad season for servants, and that I have been three days without one." Then turning to Mattina, "How old are you?" Now no one had ever thought of telling Mattina her age; she was a big girl, since her mother had often trusted her of late to make the bread, and that was all she knew about it. She looked up at the woman and noticed that she had little black eyes like currants, a nose that went in before it came out, and a mouth that had no lips; then she quietly answered her question by another one. "How should I know my years?" Her aunt interposed hurriedly:-- "She must be fourteen, Kyria." "Fourteen! Vegetable marrows! She is not even twelve! From where is she?" "From Poros." "Poros! I have had many serving-maids from Andros, and some from Tenos, and one came from Crete, but from Poros ... h'm...."