"Madonna mia Santissima!" she exclaimed. "It is your reverence, after all. I thought I heard voices—"
"Yes, Ernana, it is I," said Don Agostino, quietly.
"Accidente! but you frightened me!" grumbled the woman. "I was plucking the chicken for your reverence's supper, and—"
"So I perceive," remarked Don Agostino, watching feathers falling off her person to the floor. "And you heard voices," he added. "Well, I was talking to myself. You can return to the chicken, Ernana, in peace!"
"The chicken is a fat chicken," observed Ernana, reflectively. "A proposito," she added, "will your reverence eat it boiled? It sits more lightly on the stomach at night—boiled."
"I will eat it boiled," said Don Agostino.
"And with a contorno of rice?"
Don Agostino sighed.
"Rice?" he repeated, absently. "Of course, Ernana; with rice, certainly with rice."
III