"I cannot; each one works for himself on the island; there are no houses in which to serve, there is no money to earn." Antigone shrugged her shoulders. "Truly it is much money you are earning here! Eight drachmæ a month, and your shoes," with a contemptuous glance at Mattina's feet, "all worn out!" "There are only three holes," said Mattina gravely, "and she," with a backward jerk of her thumb, "said I should have new ones next week." Antigone laughed. "You will get them on the week that has no Saturday." "And at New Year," went on Mattina, "she will give me a present!" "Give you a present! She! Your Kyria! You have many loaves to eat, my poor one, before that day dawns!" "But she said so." "She said and she will unsay!" "But my aunt heard it, too, and she told my uncle it would be a fine one." "Your aunt does not know her, and I have lived next door to her it is three years now, and I have known all her servants. Some people give presents, yes, they have good hearts; but your mistress would never give a thing belonging to her, no, not even her fever! Now there is the 'Madmazella' who lives in the ground floor room at our house. She gives lessons all day long, and she has not much money, yet she often gives me things. When she came back from her country last time, she brought me a silk blouse ready sewn with little flowers all over it, and lace at the neck. And the other day she put her two hats into one paper box, and gave me the other one to keep my hat in, because it gets crushed in my trunk. And always with a good word in her mouth! So I too when she is ill, I run for her till I fall. She is going away again to her country, in a few days now, and she says that when she comes back she will bring me a new hat." But Mattina's mind was running on her present. "I do not want a silk blouse, nor a box for a hat, because," she added as an afterthought, "I have no hat. But I should like very much if someone would give me a picture with a broad gold frame, which I saw in the window of a shop the other day when I took the children out. It was the picture of the sea, and there was a boat on it with a white sail, and you could see the sail in the water all long and wavy, as you do really, and if you touched the water you thought your finger would be wet. That is what I wish for." "A picture! And where would you hang it?" Mattina thought for a moment. "I do not know," she said at last, "but it would be mine, and I could look at it every day." "You! with your seas, and your rocks, and your island!" exclaimed the older girl as she stooped to pick up her crochet work which had fallen off her knees. "Even if it were Paris, you could not make more fuss about it." "What is Paris?" "Paris is the country from where Madmazella comes. She says it is a thousand times more beautiful than Athens."