Jeli, the Shepherd-3

"We are going away," said Mara, when she saw him looking around. "We are going down to Marineo, where the great house stands in the plain."

Jeli took hold and helped massaro Agrippino and la gnà Lia load up the cart, and when there was nothing else to carry out of the room he went and sat down with Mara on the edge of the watering-trough.

"Even houses," he remarked, when he saw the last hamper piled on, "even houses, when anything is taken away from them, do not any longer seem the same."

"At Marineo," replied Mara, "we shall have much better rooms, mamma says, and large as the cheese house."

"Now that you are going away, I shall not want to come here any more; it seems to me as if winter had come back—to see that door closed."

"At Marineo we shall find other friends, Pudda la rossa and the cam……