ging to the convent which waved before the window;
and below lay the convent garden, fresh with the dews of the night.
There stretched the green walks, so glittering with diamond-drops and
with the gossamer as to show that no step had passed over them since
dawn. There lay the parterres--one crowded with geraniums of all hues;
another with proud lilies, white, orange, and purple; and another with a
flowering pomegranate in the centre, while the gigantic white and blue
convolvulus coveted the soil all around, mixing with the bright green
leaves and crimson blossoms of the hibiscus. No one seemed to be
abroad, to enjoy the garden during this the freshest hour of the day; no
one but the old black gardener, Raphael, whose cracked voice might be
heard at intervals from the depths of the shrubbery in the opposite
corner, singing snatches of the hymns which the sisters sung in the
chapel. When his hoarse music ceased, the occasional snap of a bough,
and movements among the bushes, told that the old man was still there,
busy at his work.

Euphrosyne wished that he would come out, within sight of the beckon of
her hand. She dared not call, for fear of wakening her grandfather: but
she very much wanted a flowering orange branch. A gay little
humming-bird was sitting and hovering near her; and she thought that a
bunch of fragrant blossoms would entice it in a moment. The little
creature came and went, flew round the balcony and retired: and still
old Raphael kept out of sight behind the leafy screen.

"It will be gone, pretty creature!" said Euphrosyne to herself; "and all
for want of a single bough from all those thickets!"

A thought struck her. Her morning frock was tied round the waist with a
cord, having tassels which hung down nearly to her feet. She took off
the cord, made a noose in it, and let it down among the shrubs below,
swinging the end this way and that, as she thought best for catching
some stray twig. She pursued her aim for a time, sending showers of
dew-drops paltering down, and knocking off a good many blossoms, but
catching nothing. She was so busy, that she did not see that a
grey-suited nun had come out, with a wicker cage in her hand, and was
watching her proceedings.

"What are you doing, my child?" asked the nun, approaching, as a new
shower of dew-drops and blossoms was shaken abroad. "If you desire to
fish, I doubt not our reverend mother will make you welcome to our pond
yonder."

"Oh,