“Well, then, sister,” said the monk, soothingly, “why press this matter? why hurry?  The poor little child is young; let her frisk like a lamb, and dance like a butterfly, and sing her hymns every day like a bright bird.  Surely the Apostle saith, ’He that giveth his maid in marriage doeth well, but he that giveth her not doeth better.’”

“But I have opened the subject already to old Meta,” said Elsie; “and if I don’t pursue it, she will take it into her head that her son is lightly regarded, and then her back will be up, and one may lose the chance; and on the whole, considering the money and the fellow, I don’t know a safer way to settle the girl.”

“Well, sister, as I have remarked,” said the monk, “I could not order my speech to propose anything of this kind to a young maid; I should so bungle that I might spoil all.  You must even propose it yourself.”

“I would not have undertaken it,” said Elsie, “had I not been frightened by that hook-nosed old kite of a cavalier that has been sailing and perching round.  We are two lone women here, and the times are unsettled, and one never knows, that hath so fair a prize, but she may be carried off, and then no redress from any quarter.”

“You might lodge her in the convent,” said the monk.

“Yes, and then, the first thing I should know, they would have got her away from me entirely.  I have been well pleased to have her much with the sisters hitherto, because it kept her from hearing the foolish talk of girls and gallants,—­and such a flower would have had every wasp and bee buzzing round it.  But now the time is coming to marry her, I much doubt these nuns.  There’s old Jocunda is a sensible woman, who knew something of the world before she went there,—­but the Mother Theresa knows no more than a baby; and they would take her in, and make her as white and as thin as that moon yonder now the sun has risen; and little good should I have of her, for I have no vocation for the convent,—­it would kill me in a week.  No,—­she has seen enough of the convent for the present.  I will even take the risk of watching her myself.  Little has this gallant seen of her, though he has tried hard enough!  But to-day I may venture to take her down with me.”

Father Antonio felt a little conscience-smitten in listening to these triumphant assertions of old Elsie; for he knew that she would pour all her vials of wrath on his head, did she know, that, owing to his absence from his little charge, the dreaded invader had managed to have two interviews with her grandchild, on the very spot that Elsie deemed the fortress of security; but he wisely kept his own counsel, believing in the eternal value of silence.  In truth, the gentle monk lived so much in the unreal and celestial world of Beauty, that he was by no means a skilful guide for the passes of common life.  Love, other than that ethereal kind which aspires towards Paradise, was a stranger to his thoughts, and he constantly