her Theresa looked;--much she knows about conserves! I suppose she
thinks Gabriel brings them straight down from Paradise, done up in
leaves of the tree of life. Old Jocunda knows what goes to their making
up; she's good for something, if she is old and twisted; many a scrubby
old olive bears fat berries," said the old portress, chuckling.

"Oh, dear Jocunda," said Agnes, "why must you go this minute? I want to
talk with you about so many things!"

"Bless the sweet child! it does want its old Jocunda, does it?" said the
old woman, in the tone with which one caresses a baby. "Well, well, it
should, then! Just wait a minute, till I go and see that our holy Saint
Cattarina hasn't fallen a-praying over the conserving-pan. I'll be back
in a moment."

So saying, she hobbled off briskly, and Agnes, sitting down on the
fragment sculptured with dancing nymphs, began abstractedly pulling her
flowers towards her, shaking from them the dew of the fountain.

Unconsciously to herself, as she sat there, her head drooped into the
attitude of the marble nymph, and her sweet features assumed the same
expression of plaintive and dreamy thoughtfulness; her heavy dark lashes
lay on her pure waxen cheeks like the dark fringe of some tropical
flower. Her form, in its drooping outlines, scarcely yet showed the full
development of womanhood, which after-years might unfold into the ripe
fulness of her countrywomen. Her whole attitude and manner were those of
an exquisitively sensitive and highly organized being, just struggling
into the life of some mysterious new inner birth,--into the sense of
powers of feeling and being hitherto unknown even to herself.

"Ah," she softly sighed to herself, "how little I am! how little I can
do! Could I convert one soul! Ah, holy Dorothea, send down the roses of
heaven into his soul, that he also may believe!"

"Well, my little beauty, you have not finished even one garland," said
the voice of old Jocunda, bustling up behind her. "Praise to Saint
Martha, the conserves are doing well, and so I catch a minute for my
little heart."

So saying, she sat down with her spindle and flax by Agnes, for an
afternoon gossip.

"Dear Jocunda, I have heard you tell stories about spirits that haunt
lonesome places. Did you ever hear about any in the gorge?"

"Why, bless the child, yes,--spirits are always pacing up and down in
lonely places. Father Anselmo told me that; and he had seen a priest
once that had seen th