ie, appearing at the
door,--"here! where are you?"

"Here, grandmamma."

"Who's that singing this time o' night?"

"I don't know, grandmamma."

Somehow the child felt as if that singing were strangely sacred to
her,--a _rapport_ between her and something vague and invisible, which
might yet become dear.

"Is't down in the gorge?" said the old woman, coming with her heavy,
decided step to the parapet, and looking over, her keen black eyes
gleaming like dagger-blades info the mist. "If there's anybody there,"
she said, "let them go away, and not be troubling honest women with any
of their caterwauling. Come, Agnes," she said, pulling the girl by the
sleeve, "you must be tired, my lamb! and your evening-prayers are always
so long, best be about them, girl, so that old grandmamma may put you to
bed. What ails the girl? Been crying! Your hand is cold as a stone."

"Grandmamma, what if that might be a spirit?" she said. "Sister Rosa
told me stories of singing spirits that have been in this very gorge."

"Likely enough," said Dame Elsie; "but what's that to us? Let 'em sing!
--so long as we don't listen, where's the harm done? We will sprinkle
holy water all round the parapet, and say the office of Saint Agnes, and
let them sing till they are hoarse."

Such was the triumphant view which this energetic good woman took of the
power of the means of grace which her church placed at her disposal.

Nevertheless, while Agnes was kneeling at her evening-prayers, the old
dame consoled herself with a soliloquy, as with a brush she vigorously
besprinkled the premises with holy water.

"Now, here's the plague of a girl! If she's handsome,--and nobody wants
one that isn't,--why, then, it's a purgatory to look after her. This one
is good enough,--none of your hussies, like Giulietta: but the better
they are, the more sure to have fellows after them. A murrain on that
cavalier,--king's brother, or what not!--it was he serenading, I'll be
bound. I must tell Antonio, and have the girl married, for aught I see:
and I don't want to give her to him either; he didn't bring her up.
There's no peace for us mothers. Maybe I'll tell Father Francesco about
it. That's the way poor little Isella was carried away. Singing is of
the Devil, I believe; it always bewitches girls. I'd like to have poured
some hot oil down the rocks: I'd have made him squeak in another tone, I
reckon. Well, well! I hope I shall come in for a good seat in paradise
fo