These day-dreams did not at that time interfere with his religious duties. They only took the place of those occasional hours, when, partly by the reaction consequent on great religious fervour, partly through exhaustion of the body weakened by fasts, partly by the natural delicacy of his fibre, and the tenderness of his disposition, his soul used to be sad. By-and-by these languid hours, sad no longer, became sweet and dear to him. He had something so interesting to think of, to dream about. He had a Madonna that cared for him in secret. She was human; but good, beautiful, and wise. She came to his sermons, and understood every word. "And she knows me better than I know myself," said he: "since I had these flowers from her hand, I am another man." One day he came into his room and found two watering pots there. One was large and had a rose to it, the other small and with a plain spout. "Ah!" said he; and colored with delight. He called Betty, and asked her who had brought them. "How should I know?" said she, roughly. "I dare say they dropped from Heaven. See, there is a cross painted on 'em in gold letters." "And so there is!" said Leonard, and crossed himself. "That means nobody is to use them but you, I trow," said Betty, rather crossly. The priest's cheek coloured high. "I will use them this instant," said he. "I will revive my drooping children, as they have revived me." And he caught up a watering pot with ardour. "What, with the sun hot upon 'em?" screamed Betty. "Well, saving your presence, you are a simple man." "Why, good Betty, 'tis the sun that makes them faint," objected the priest, timidly, and with the utmost humility of manner, though Betty's tone would have irritated a smaller mind. "Well, well," said she, softening; "but ye see it never rains with a hot sun, and the flowers they know that, and look to be watered after Nature, or else they take it amiss. You, and all your sort, sir, you think to be stronger than nature; you do fast and pray all day, and won't look a woman in the face like other men; and now you wants to water the very flowers at noon." "Betty," said Leonard, smiling, "I yield to thy superior wisdom, and I will water them at morn and eve. In truth we have all much to learn: let us try and teach one another as kindly as we can." "I wish you'd teach me to be as humble as you be," blurted out Betty, with something very like a sob: "and more respectful to my betters," added she, angrily. Watering the flowers she had given him became a solace and a delight to the solitary priest: he always watered them with his own hands and felt quite paternal over them.