TO AGNES.

  Sweet saint, sweet lady, may a sinful soul
  Approach thee with an offering of love,
  And lay at thy dear feet a weary heart
  That loves thee, as it loveth God above! 
  If blessed Mary may without a stain
  Receive the love of sinners most defiled,
  If the fair saints that walk with her in white
  Refuse not love from earth’s most guilty child,
  Shouldst thou, sweet lady, then that love deny
  Which all-unworthy at thy feet is laid? 
  Ah, gentlest angel, be not more severe
  Than the dear heavens unto a loving prayer! 
  Howe’er unworthily that prayer be said,
  Let thine acceptance be like that on high!

There might have been times in Agnes’s life when the reception of this note would have astonished and perplexed her; but the whole strain of thought and conversation this evening had been in exalted and poetical regions, and the soft stillness of the hour, the wonderful calmness and clearness of the moonlight, all seemed in unison with the strange incident that had occurred, and with the still stranger tenor of the paper.  The soft melancholy, half-religious tone of it was in accordance with the whole undercurrent of her life, and prevented that start of alarm which any homage of a more worldly form might have excited.  It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that she read it many times with pauses and intervals of deep thought, and then with a movement of natural and girlish curiosity examined the rich jewel which had inclosed it.  At last, seeming to collect her thoughts, she folded the paper and replaced it in its sparkling casket, and, unlocking the door of the shrine, laid the gem with its inclosure beneath the lily-spray, as another offering to the Madonna.  “Dear Mother,” she said, “if indeed it be so, may he rise from loving me to loving thee and thy dear Son, who is Lord of all!  Amen!” Thus praying, she locked the door and turned thoughtfully to her repose, leaving the monk pacing up and down in the moonlit garden.

Meanwhile the Cavalier was standing on the velvet mossy bridge which spanned the stream at the bottom of the gorge, watching the play of moonbeams on layer after layer of tremulous silver foliage in the clefts of the black, rocky walls on either side.  The moon rode so high in the deep violet-colored sky, that her beams came down almost vertically, making green and translucent the leaves through which they passed, and throwing strongly marked shadows here and there on the flower-embroidered moss of the old bridge.  There was that solemn, plaintive stillness in the air which makes the least sound—­the hum of an insect’s wing, the cracking of a twig, the patter of falling water—­so distinct and impressive.

It needs not to be explained how the Cavalier, following the steps of Agnes and her grandmother at a distance, had threaded the path by which they ascended to their little sheltered nook,—­how he had lingered within hearing of Agnes’s voice, and, moving among the surrounding rocks and trees, and drawing nearer and nearer as evening shadows drew on, had listened to the conversation, hoping that some unexpected chance might gain him a moment’s speech with his enchantress.