"Courage!" said Aunt Porredda, as she took leave of Giovanna, and the latter heard her husband's sentence in the kind hostess's tone, and went off with the look of a whipped dog.
Paolo followed her with his eyes; then, limping across the courtyard to his mother, he said a singular thing:
"Listen to me, mamma; before two years have gone by that young woman will be married to some one else!"
"What do you mean by saying such a thing, Dr. Pededdu!" cried the mother, who always addressed her son by his nickname when she was angry with him. "Upon my word, you must be crazy!"
"Oh! mamma, I have crossed the sea," he replied. "Let us hope, at all events, that she will engage me as her lawyer."
"That young man devours his food like a dog," said Giovanna to her mother, as they descended the steep little street. "May the Lord have mercy on him!"
Aunt Bachissia, walking along plunged in thought, answered through her clenched teeth, "He will make a good lawyer; he will gnaw his clients to the bone and then swallow them whole!"
Then the two walked on in silence, but a moment later Aunt Bachissia stumbled, and as she did so, for some reason that she could not fathom, it flashed into her mind that, should it ever so fall out that Giovanna were to apply for a divorce, she would ask Paolo to be their lawyer.
It was eight o'clock when they reached the Cathedral Square, and the small windows of the Court House close by were sending back dazzling reflections of the early morning sun.
The little granite-paved square was already crowded with country friends and neighbours, witnesses in the trial. Some of these immediately approached the two women, and greeted them with the inevitable commonplace: "Courage! Courage!"