So weary was Panayota that she dropped off into a doze, only to be awakened after a few moments by the sound of low sobbing. Listening, she heard the words:
"O, my God, I am an outcast, a thing accursed. I am poison to the touch. Holy Virgin, save my children, save my little ones."
Panayota sat up on the bench.
"I cannot sleep, sister Aglaia," she said, "I am so sorry for you. If my father were here he would know what to say to you. He was killed by the Turks. I am an orphan."
She spoke of her own grief instinctively, feeling that the sympathy of the prosperous is not a comfort to those in sorrow.
"My father was a good man, sister Aglaia. He was a priest, and everybody loved him. My mother died when I was a little girl and left me to his care. He never said an unkind word to me in all his life. He used often to talk to me about mama, and his voice was very, very tender. And he used to put his arm around me there in the door of our little parsonage, at night, before we went to bed, and, pointing to the stars, he would say: 'When we all get together up there, you will tell mama that I was good to you, won't you, Panayota?' And I used to say to him: 'Oh, papa, I ask the Virgin every night to tell her.' But mama knows, sister Aglaia, she knows it all now."
"Oh, but your mother is dead and in heaven," replied Aglaia, "and you can cherish her memory and plant flowers upon her grave. But suppose she had been a leper, accursed of God, would you not have thought of her with—with horror? As she grew more and more repulsive, would you not have shuddered even at the thought of her?"
"No, no, indeed. I should have, thought always of her beautiful soul. Her misfortune would have made my love greater. That is the way any child would feel toward its mother."
"Do you really think so?" cried Aglaia. "O, it does me so much good to hear you, say so. I have a husband and two children—a girl and a boy. That is why you saw me praying when you came in. I pray all the time to the Virgin to save them from the curse. I never pray for myself. I am past all help. But I pray, pray night and day for my children."
"But there is another world," said Panayota, solemnly. "Do you never ask for happiness in that?"