Thus soliloquizing, she prepared to go a few steps from their dwelling, to the cottage of Meta and Antonio, which was situated at no great distance.

“Nobody will think of coming here this time o’ night,” she said, “and the girl is in for a good hour at least with her prayers, and so I think I may venture.  I don’t really like to leave her, but it’s not a great way, and I shall be back in a few moments.  I want just to put a word into old Meta’s ear, that she may teach Antonio how to demean himself.”

And so the old soul took her spinning and away she went, leaving Agnes absorbed in her devotions.

The solemn starry night looked down steadfastly on the little garden.  The evening wind creeping with gentle stir among the orange-leaves, and the falling waters of the fountain dripping their distant, solitary way down from rock to rock through the lonely gorge, were the only sounds that broke the stillness.

The monk was the first of the two to return; for those accustomed to the habits of elderly cronies on a gossiping expedition of any domestic importance will not be surprised that Elsie’s few moments of projected talk lengthened imperceptibly into hours.

Agnes came forward anxiously to meet her uncle.  He seemed wan and haggard, and trembling with some recent emotion.

“What is the matter with you, dear uncle?” she asked.  “Has anything happened?”

“Nothing, child, nothing.  I have only been talking on painful subjects, deep perplexities, out of which I can scarcely see my way.  Would to God this night of life were past, and I could see morning on the mountains!”

“My uncle, have you not, then, succeeded in bringing this young man to the bosom of the True Church?”

“Child, the way is hedged up, and made almost impassable by difficulties you little wot of.  They cannot be told to you; they are enough to destroy the faith of the very elect.”

Agnes’s heart sank within her; and the monk, sitting down on the wall of the garden, clasped his hands over one knee and gazed fixedly before him.

The sight of her uncle,—­generally so cheerful, so elastic, so full of bright thoughts and beautiful words,—­so utterly cast down, was both a mystery and a terror to Agnes.

“Oh, my uncle,” she said, “it is hard that I must not know, and that I can do nothing, when I feel ready to die for this cause!  What is one little life?  Ah, if I had a thousand to give, I could melt them all into it, like little drops of rain in the sea!  Be not utterly cast down, good uncle!  Does not our dear Lord and Saviour reign in the heavens yet?”

“Sweet little nightingale!” said the monk, stretching his hand towards her.  “Well did my master say that he gained strength to his soul always by talking with Christ’s little children!”

“And all the dear saints and angels, they are not dead or idle either,” said Agnes, her face kindling; “they are busy all around us.  I know not what this trouble is you speak of; but let us think what legions of bright angels and holy men and women are caring for us.”