in dusky shadows by its orange-trees, Agnes looked
down the sombre gorge to where the open sea lay panting and palpitating
in blue and violet waves, while the little white sails of fishing-boats
drifted hither and thither, now silvered in the sunshine, now fading
away like a dream into the violet vapor bands that mantled the horizon.
The weather would have been oppressively sultry but for the gentle
breeze which constantly drifted landward with coolness in its wings. The
hum of the old town came to her ear softened by distance and mingled
with the patter of the fountain and the music of birds singing in the
trees overhead. Agnes tried to busy herself with her spinning; but her
mind constantly wandered away, and stirred and undulated with a thousand
dim and unshaped thoughts and emotions, of which she vaguely questioned
in her own mind. Why did Father Francesco warn her so solemnly against
an earthly love? Did he not know her vocation? But still he was wisest
and must know best; there must be danger, if he said so. But then,
this knight had spoken so modestly, so humbly,--so differently from
Giulietta's lovers!--for Giulietta had sometimes found a chance to
recount to Agnes some of her triumphs. How could it be that a knight so
brave and gentle, and so piously brought up, should become an infidel?
Ah, uncle Antonio was right,--he must have had some foul wrong, some
dreadful injury! When Agnes was a child, in travelling with her
grandmother through one of the highest passes of the Apennines, she had
chanced to discover a wounded eagle, whom an arrow had pierced, sitting
all alone by himself on a rock, with his feathers ruffled, and a film
coming over his great, clear, bright eye,--and, ever full of compassion,
she had taken him to nurse, and had travelled for a day with him in her
arms; and the mournful look of his regal eyes now came into her memory.
"Yes," she said to herself, "he is like my poor eagle! The archers have
wounded him, so that he is glad to find shelter even with a poor maid
like me; but it was easy to see my eagle had been king among birds, even
as this knight is among men. Certainly, God must love him,--he is so
beautiful and noble! I hope dear uncle will find him this afternoon; he
knows how to teach him;--as for me, I can only pray."

Such were the thoughts that Agnes twisted into the shining white flax,
while her eyes wandered dreamily over the soft hazy landscape. At last,
lulled by the shivering soun