"What's the matter!" cried Goneril.
"We expect the signorino," said Miss Prunty.
"And is he going to stay here?"
"Don't be a fool!" snapped that lady; and then she added--"Go into the
kitchen and get some of the pastry and some bread and cheese, there's a
good girl."
"All right!" said Goneril.
Madame Petrucci stopped her vocalising. "You shall have all the better a
dinner to compensate you, my Gonerilla!" She smiled sweetly, and then
again became Zerlina.
Goneril cut her lunch, and took it out of doors to share with her
companion, Angiolino. He was harvesting the first corn under the olives,
but at noon it was too hot to work. Sitting still there was, however, a
cool breeze that gently stirred the sharp-edged olive-leaves.
Angiolino lay down at full length and munched his bread and cheese in
perfect happiness. Goneril kept shifting about to get herself into the
narrow shadow cast by the split and writhen trunk.
"How aggravating it is!" she cried. "In England, where there's no sun,
there's plenty of shade--and here, where the sun is like a
mustard-plaster on one's back, the leaves are all set edgewise on
purpose that they shan't cast any shadow!"
Angiolino made no answer to this intelligent remark.
"He is going to sleep again!" cried Goneril, stopping her lunch in
despair.
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