Mattina looked around her anxiously.
“Why did they say that, Kyra Polyxene? Is it so late?”
“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.