“I take back every word I said.  I do not hate him.  I would not hurt him—­I would not even stick a pin in him—­if I had him at my mercy.  No—­I would do anything I could to help him.  I would give him anything I had that he could want.  I would give him my coral rosary.  I would give him”—­she hesitated, struggled, and at last, drawing a deep breath, gritting her teeth, in supreme renunciation—­“yes, I would give him my tame kid,” she forced herself to pronounce, with a kind of desperate firmness.  “But see,” she wailed, her little white brow a mesh of painful wrinkles, “it is all no good.  God is still angry.  Oh, what shall I do?” And, to the surprise and distress of Maria Dolores, she burst into a sudden passion of tears, sobbing, sobbing, with that abandonment of grief which only children know.

“My dear, my dear,” exclaimed Maria Dolores, drawing her to her.  “My dearest, you mustn’t cry like that.  Dear little Annunziata.  What is it?  Why do you cry so, dear one?  Answer me.  Tell me.”

But Annunziata only buried her face in Maria Dolores’ sleeve, and moaned, while long, tremulous convulsions shook her frail little body.  Maria Dolores put both arms about her, hugged her close, and laid her cheek upon her hair.

“Darling Annunziata, don’t cry.  Why should you cry so, dearest?  God is not angry with you.  Why should you think that God is angry with you?  God loves you, darling.  Everyone loves you.  There, there—­dearest—­don’t cry.  Sweet one, dear one.”

Transitions, with Annunziata, were sometimes inexplicably rapid.  All at once her sobbing ceased; she looked up, and smiled, smiled radiantly, from a face that was wet and glistening with tears.  “Thanks be to God,” she piously exulted; “God is not angry any more.”

“Of course He isn’t,” said Maria Dolores, tightening her hug, and touching Annunziata’s curls lightly with her lips.  “But He was never angry.  What made you think that God was angry?”

Annunziata’s big eyes widened.  “Didn’t you notice?” she asked, in a hushed voice, amazed.

“No,” wondered Maria Dolores.  “What was there to notice?”

“He made them draw a cloud over the sun,” Annunziata whispered.  “Didn’t you notice that when I said I would like to—­when I said what I said about that friend of Prospero’s—­just then they drew a cloud across the sun?  That is a sign that God is angry.  The sun, you know, is the window in Heaven through which God looks down on the world, and through which the light of Heaven shines on the world.  And when the window is open, we feel happy and thankful, and wish to sing and laugh.  But when we have done something to make God angry with us, then He sends angels to draw clouds over the window, so that we may be shut out of His sight, and the light of Heaven may be shut off from us.  And then we are lonely and cold, and we could quarrel with anything, even with the pigs.  God wishes to show us how bad it would be always to be shut off from His sight.  But now they have drawn the cloud away, so God is not angry any more.  I made a good act of contrition, and He has forgiven me.”