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 from old age. They did not, while she was here, with her lease of the old house, and her prudent savings, but when she was gone?

The people were very poor; they could seldom get food enough for themselves; who would cherish a nameless child? She herself, though she had neighbours, had no friends; she was always the 'woman of Savoy' to all the folks of Santa Tarsilla.

It made her very anxious, for she was a good woman, and the creature that lay on her bed and ate at her board, she loved, though she said but little.

'Do you ever think that I shall die?' she said abruptly to the child, who looked at her in some surprise.

'Die?' she echoed. 'That is going away into the earth, you mean, as everything does, and then it goes upward and lives with God, they say; would you wish that?'

'I will have to do it whether I wish or not, and about living with God I do not know. I am a sinful soul, though not worse than most. But you do not understand. When I am dead, under the earth as you say, what will you do?'