"Ay, ay," muttered the old woman to herself, looking obliquely out of
the corner of her eye at the girl, who was busily sorting her flowers;
"perhaps he will be seeking some other acquaintance."

"You haven't seen him since?" said Jocunda.

"Seen him? Why, dear Jocunda, it was only last evening"--

"True enough. Well, child, don't think too much of him. Men are dreadful
creatures,--in these times especially; they snap up a pretty girl as a
fox does a chicken, and no questions asked."

"I don't think he looked wicked, Jocunda; he had a proud, sorrowful
look. I don't know what could make a rich, handsome young man sorrowful;
but I feel in my heart that he is not happy. Mother Theresa says that
those who can do nothing but pray may convert princes without knowing
it."

"May be it is so," said Jocunda, in the same tone in which thrifty
professors of religion often assent to the same sort of truths in our
days. "I've seen a good deal of that sort of cattle in my day; and one
would think, by their actions, that praying souls must be scarce where
they came from."

Agnes abstractedly stooped and began plucking handfuls of lycopodium,
which was growing green and feathery on one side of the marble frieze on
which she was sitting; in so doing, a fragment of white marble, which
had been overgrown in the luxuriant green, appeared to view. It was
that frequent object in the Italian soil,--a portion of an old Roman
tombstone. Agnes bent over, intent on the mystic "_Dis Manibus_" in old