“Oh, Agnes, sacrament and prayer are not for such as me!  It is only through your pure prayers I can hope for grace.”

“Dear Sir, I have an uncle, a most holy man, and gentle as a lamb.  He is of the convent San Marco in Florence, where there is a most holy prophet risen up.”

“Savonarola?” said the cavalier, with flashing eyes.

“Yes, that is he.  You should hear my uncle talk of him, and how blessed his preaching has been to many souls.  Dear Sir, come some time to my uncle.”

At this moment the sound of Elsie’s voice was heard ascending the path to the gorge outside, talking with Father Antonio, who was returning.

Both started, and Agnes looked alarmed.

“Fear nothing, sweet lamb,” said the cavalier; “I am gone.”

He kneeled and kissed the hand of Agnes, and disappeared at one bound over the parapet on the side opposite that which they were approaching.

Agnes hastily composed herself, struggling with that half-guilty feeling which is apt to weigh on a conscientious nature that has been unwittingly drawn to act a part which would be disapproved by those whose good opinion it habitually seeks.  The interview had but the more increased her curiosity to know the history of this handsome stranger.  Who, then, could he be?  What were his troubles?  She wished the interview could have been long enough to satisfy her mind on these points.  From the richness of his dress, from his air and manner, from the poetry and the jewel that accompanied it, she felt satisfied, that, if not what she supposed, he was at least nobly born, and had shone in some splendid sphere whose habits and ways were far beyond her simple experiences.  She felt towards him somewhat of the awe which a person of her condition in life naturally felt toward that brilliant aristocracy which in those days assumed the state of princes, and the members of which were supposed to look down on common mortals from as great a height as the stars regard the humblest flowers of the field.

“How strange,” she thought, “that he should think so much of me!  What can he see in me?  And how can it be that a great lord, who speaks so gently and is so reverential to a poor girl, and asks prayers so humbly, can be so wicked and unbelieving as he says he is?  Dear God, it cannot be that he is an unbeliever; the great Enemy has been permitted to try him, to suggest doubts to him, as he has to holy saints before now.  How beautifully he spoke about his mother!—­tears glittered in his eyes then,—­ah, there must be grace there after all!”

“Well, my little heart,” said Elsie, interrupting her reveries, “have you had a pleasant day?”

“Delightful, grandmamma,” said Agnes, blushing deeply with consciousness.

“Well,” said Elsie, with satisfaction, “one thing I know,—­I’ve frightened off that old hawk of a cavalier with his hooked nose.  I haven’t seen so much as the tip of his shoe-tie to-day.  Yesterday he made himself very busy around our stall; but I made him understand that you never would come there again till the coast was clear.”