"No, it is not late. But you will find trouble for you at the house. Your mistress has lost money ... much money ... a twenty-five drachmæ note, and she says that only you can have taken it." Mattina fell back a step and stared up at the old woman. "I?" "Yes, and your mistress got your bundle and took out all your things and threw them here and there; but she found naught, and she is spoiling the world with her screams." "Come!" said Mattina, "let me go and tell her she does not know what she says." But the old woman pulled her back. "Listen, my girl! You are but a little one, without a whole shoe to your foot, and these people count every mouthful of bread you put into your mouth.... If it was in an evil moment?... Give it to me! and if it be not changed, I will put it where they may find it and the noise will be over." "You, also, do not know what you say," and Mattina dragged her arm away and ran into the house. The door of the living-room was open, and from it came the sound of angry voices and loud cries. Mattina walked right in. "I am here," she announced, "and neither have I seen your...." But she could not finish her sentence; a furiously angry woman rushed at her, caught her by the shoulder, and shook her viciously. "You thief!" she screamed. "You little thief! This is how you repay me for taking you in! And you have the face to speak also!" If Mattina had been a poor little servant all her life, and if her parents had been servants before her, she would perhaps have insisted on her innocence more respectfully, but until lately she had always lived with her equals, and also she was the child of free islanders, who had never called any one their master. With both hands she pushed her mistress away from her as hard as she could push. "Leave me! Leave me I tell you! I a thief! I! It is you are a liar for saying so!" But two heavy blows sent her staggering against the table. Then it seemed as though all the people in the room were about to fall upon her, and she crouched there with uplifted arm to protect her head. The master pushed aside his wife. "Wait a moment!" he said. "Let me speak to her!" then to Mattina:-- "Tell me now what you have done with the money?" "I never saw it, I tell you." "That does not pass with me; you have hidden it somewhere, or given it to someone." "Since I tell you I never saw it!" "There is no one else in the house to take it. If you did not see it, where is it?" "Do I know?" said Mattina, sullenly. "Is she not always losing her things?" and she pointed to her mistress. Now because the woman was really constantly mislaying her belongings, this made her still more furious. She darted at Mattina. "Wait till I show her!" and she struck her so hard a blow on the mouth, that Mattina screamed and covered her face with both arms. Her mistress raised her hand again but one of her sisters pulled her back. "Find the money first," she said. "What do you gain by beating her?"