Chapter 16 SUSPENSE

Christmas was at hand. There was a heap of maize cobs still unstripped. Alvina sat with Ciccio stripping them, in the corn-place.

"Will you be able to stop here till the baby is born?" he asked her.

She watched the films of the leaves come off from the burning gold maize cob under his fingers, the long, ruddy cone of fruition. The heap of mai