“I would,” said Agnes, thoughtfully, “that I knew who this stranger is, and what is his great trouble and need,—­his eyes are so full of sorrow.  Giulietta said he was the King’s brother, and was called the Lord Adrian.  What sorrow can he have, or what need for the prayers of a poor maid like me?”

“Perhaps the Lord hath pierced him with a longing after the celestial beauty and heavenly purity of paradise, and wounded him with a divine sorrow, as happened to Saint Francis and to the blessed Saint Dominic,” said the monk.  “Beauty is the Lord’s arrow, wherewith he pierceth to the inmost soul, with a divine longing and languishment which find rest only in him.  Hence thou seest the wounds of love in saints are always painted by us with holy flames ascending from them.  Have good courage, sweet child, and pray with fervor for this youth; for there be no prayers sweeter before the throne of God than those of spotless maidens.  The Scripture saith, ‘My beloved feedeth among the lilies.’”

At this moment the sharp, decided tramp of Elsie was heard reentering the garden.

“Come, Agnes,” she said, “It is time for you to begin your prayers, or, the saints know, I shall not get you to bed till midnight.  I suppose prayers are a good thing,” she added, seating herself wearily; “but if one must have so many of them, one must get about them early.  There’s reason in all things.”

Agnes, who had been sitting abstractedly on the parapet, with her head drooped over the lily-spray, now seemed to collect herself.  She rose up in a grave and thoughtful manner, and, going forward to the shrine of the Madonna, removed the flowers of the morning, and holding the vase under the spout of the fountain, all feathered with waving maiden-hair, filled it with fresh water, the drops falling from it in a thousand little silver rings in the moonlight.

“I have a thought,” said the monk to himself, drawing from his girdle a pencil and hastily sketching by the moonlight.  What he drew was a fragile maiden form, sitting with clasped hands on a mossy ruin, gazing on a spray of white lilies which lay before her.  He called it, The Blessed Virgin pondering the Lily of the Annunciation.

“Hast thou ever reflected,” he said to Agnes, “what that lily might be like which the angel Gabriel brought to our Lady?—­for, trust me, it was no mortal flower, but grew by the river of life.  I have often meditated thereon, that it was like unto living silver with a light in itself, like the moon,—­even as our Lord’s garments in the Transfiguration, which glistened like the snow.  I have cast about in myself by what device a painter might represent so marvellous a flower.”