“I don’t want any husband in this world, grandmamma,” said Agnes.

“What talk is this?  Not want a good husband to take care of you when your poor old grandmother is gone?  Who will provide for you?”

“He who took care of the blessed Saint Agnes, grandmamma.”

“Saint Agnes, to be sure!  That was a great many years ago, and times have altered since then;—­in these days girls must have husbands.  Isn’t it so, brother Antonio?”

“But if the darling hath a vocation?” said the artist, mildly.

“Vocation!  I’ll see to that!  She sha’n’t have a vocation!  Suppose I’m going to delve, and toil, and spin, and wear myself to the bone, and have her slip through my fingers at last with a vocation?  No, indeed!”

“Indeed, dear grandmother, don’t be angry!” said Agnes.  “I will do just as you say,—­only I don’t want a husband.”

“Well, well, my little heart,—­one thing at a time; you sha’n’t have him till you say yes willingly,” said Elsie, in a mollified tone.

Agnes turned again to the portfolio and busied herself with it, her eyes dilating as she ran over the sketches.

“Ah! what pretty, pretty bird is this?” she asked.

“Knowest thou not that bird, with his little red beak?” said the artist.  “When our dear Lord hung bleeding, and no man pitied him, this bird, filled with tender love, tried to draw out the nails with his poor little beak,—­so much better were the birds than we hard-hearted sinners!—­hence he hath honor in many pictures.  See here,—­I shall put him into the office of the Sacred Heart, in a little nest curiously built in a running vine of passion-flower.  See here, daughter,—­I have a great commission to execute a Breviary for our house, and our holy Father was pleased to say that the spirit of the blessed Angelico had in some little humble measure descended on me, and now I am busy day and night; for not a twig rustles, not a bird flies, nor a flower blossoms, but I begin to see therein some hint of holy adornment to my blessed work.”

“Oh, Uncle Antonio, how happy you must be!” said Agnes,—­her large eyes filling with tears.

“Happy!—­child, am I not?” said the monk, looking up and crossing himself.  “Holy Mother, am I not?  Do I not walk the earth in a dream of bliss, and see the footsteps of my Most Blessed Lord and his dear Mother on every rock and hill?  I see the flowers rise up in clouds to adore them.  What am I, unworthy sinner, that such grace is granted me?  Often I fall on my face before the humblest flower where my dear Lord hath written his name, and confess I am unworthy the honor of copying his sweet handiwork.”

The artist spoke these words with his hands clasped and his fervid eyes upraised, like a man in an ecstasy; nor can our more prosaic English give an idea of the fluent naturalness and grace with which such images melt into that lovely tongue which seems made to be the natural language of poetry and enthusiasm.