"Well now, childie," said Jocunda, "you can sit here and weave your garlands, while I go and look after the conserves of raisins and citrons that Sister Cattarina is making. She is stupid at anything but her prayers, is Cattarina. Our Lady be gracious to me! I think I got my vocation from Saint Martha, and if it wasn't for me, I don't know what would become of things in the Convent. Why, since I came here, our conserves, done up in fig-leaf packages, have had quite a run at Court, and our gracious Queen herself was good enough to send an order for a hundred of them last week. I could have laughed to see how puzzled the Mother Theresa looked;--much she knows about conserves! I suppose she thinks Gabriel brings them straight down from Paradise, done up in leaves of the tree of life. Old Jocunda knows what goes to their making up; she's good for something, if she is old and twisted; many a scrubby old olive bears fat berries," said the old portress, chuckling. "Oh, dear Jocunda," said Agnes, "why must you go this minute? I want to talk with you about so many things!" "Bless the sweet child! it does want its old Jocunda, does it?" said the old woman, in the tone with which one caresses a baby. "Well, well, it should, then! Just wait a minute, till I go and see that our holy Saint Cattarina hasn't fallen a-praying over the conserving-pan. I'll be back in a moment." So saying, she hobbled off briskly, and Agnes, sitting down on the fragment sculptured with dancing nymphs, began abstractedly pulling her flowers towards her, shaking from them the dew of the fountain. Unconsciously to herself, as she sat there, her head drooped into the attitude of the marble nymph, and her sweet features assumed the same expression of plaintive and dreamy thoughtfulness; her heavy dark lashes lay on her pure waxen cheeks like the dark fringe of some tropical flower. Her form, in its drooping outlines, scarcely yet showed the full development of womanhood, which after-years might unfold into the ripe fulness of her countrywomen. Her whole attitude and manner were those of an exquisitively sensitive and highly organized being, just struggling into the life of some mysterious new inner birth,--into the sense of powers of feeling and being hitherto unknown even to herself. "Ah," she softly sighed to herself, "how little I am! how little I can do! Could I convert one soul! Ah, holy Dorothea, send down the roses of heaven into his soul, that he also may believe!" "Well, my little beauty, you have not finished even one garland," said the voice of old Jocunda, bustling up behind her. "Praise to Saint Martha, the conserves are doing well, and so I catch a minute for my little heart." So saying, she sat down with her spindle and flax by Agnes, for an afternoon gossip. "Dear Jocunda, I have heard you tell stories about spirits that haunt lonesome places. Did you ever hear about any in the gorge?"