it's because he came on Easter day, I don't
know. And he's never out of mischief one
minute!"

I was thinking, as I watched her, how little
it mattered -- about her teeth, for instance.
I know so many women who have kept all the
things that she had lost, but whose inner glow
has faded. Whatever else was gone, Antonia
had not lost the fire of life. Her skin, so brown
and hardened, had not that look of flabbiness,
as if the sap beneath it had been secretly
drawn away.

While we were talking, the little boy whom
they called Jan came in and sat down on the
step beside Nina, under the hood of the stair-
way. He wore a funny long gingham apron,
like a smock, over his trousers, and his hair
was clipped so short that his head looked
white and naked. He watched us out of his
big, sorrowful gray eyes.

"He wants to tell you about the dog,
mother. They found it dead," Anna said, as
she passed us on her way to the cupboard.

Antonia beckoned the boy to her. He stood
by her chair, leaning his elbows on her knees
and twisting her apron strings in his slender
fingers, while he told her his story softly in

[[379]]

p378 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p379w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p380

v?