the language of the poets addressed to earthly loves rises into intensities of expression due only to the One, Sovereign, Eternal Beauty. One sees even in the writings of Cicero that this passionate adoring kind of love is not confined to modern times. When he loses the daughter in whom his heart is garnered up, he finds no comfort except in building a temple to her memory,—a blind outreaching towards the saint-worship of modern times.
Agnes rose from her devotions, and went with downcast eyes, her lips still repeating prayers, to the font of holy water, which was in a dim shadowy corner, where a painted window cast a gold and violet twilight. Suddenly there was a rustle of garments in the dimness, and a jewelled hand essayed to pass holy water to her on the tip of its finger. This mark of Christian fraternity, common in those times, Agnes almost mechanically accepted, touching her slender finger to the one extended, and making the sign of the cross, while she raised her eyes to see who stood there. Gradually the haze cleared from her mind, and she awoke to the consciousness that it was the cavalier! He moved to come towards her, with a bright smile on his face; but suddenly she became pale as one who has seen a spectre, and, pushing from her with both hands, she said faintly, “Go, go!” and turned and sped up the aisle silently as a sunbeam, joining her grandmother, who was coming from the confessional with a gloomy and sullen brow.
Old Elsie had been enjoined to unite with her grandchild in this scheme of a pilgrimage, and received the direction with as much internal contumacy as would a thriving church-member of Wall Street a proposition to attend a protracted meeting in the height of the business season. Not but that pilgrimages were holy and gracious works,—she was too good a Christian not to admit that,—but why must holy and gracious works be thrust on her in particular? There were saints enough who liked such things; and people could get to heaven without,—if not with a very abundant entrance, still in a modest way,—and Elsie’s ambition for position and treasure in the spiritual world was of a very moderate cast.
“Well, now, I hope you are satisfied,” she said to Agnes, as she pulled her along with no very gentle hand; “you’ve got me sent off on a pilgrimage,—and my old bones must be rattling up and down all the hills between here and Rome,—and who’s to see to the oranges?—they’ll all be stolen, every one.”
“Grandmother,” began Agnes in a pleading voice—
“Oh, you hush up! I know what you’re going to say: ‘The good Lord will take care of them.’ I wish He may! He has His hands full, with all the people that go cawing and psalm-singing like so many crows, and leave all their affairs to Him!”
Agnes walked along disconsolate, with her eyes full of tears, which coursed one another down her pale cheeks.
“There’s Antonio,” pursued Elsie, “would perhaps look after things a little. He is a good fellow, and only yesterday was asking if he couldn’t do something for us. It’s you he does it for,—but little you care who loves you, or what they do for you!”
At this moment they met old Jocunda, whom we have before introduced to the reader as portress of the Convent. She had on her arm a large square basket, which she was storing for its practical uses.
“Well, well, Saint Agnes be praised, I have found you at last,” she said. “I was wanting to speak about some of your blood-oranges for conserving. An order has come down from our dear gracious lady, the Queen, to prepare a lot for her own blessed eating, and you may be sure I would get none of anybody but you.—But what’s this, my little heart, my little lamb?—crying?—tears in those sweet eyes? What’s the matter now?”
“Matter enough for me!” said Elsie. “It’s a weary world we live in. A body can’t turn any way and not meet with trouble. If a body brings up a girl one way, why, every fellow is after her, and one has no peace; and if a body brings her up another way, she gets her head in the clouds, and there’s no good of her in this world. Now look at that girl,—doesn’t everybody say it’s time she were married?—but no marrying for her! Nothing will do but we must off to Rome on a pilgrimage,—and what’s the good of that, I want to know? If it’s praying that’s to be done, the dear saints know she’s at it from morning till night,—and lately she’s up and down three or four times a night with some prayer or other.”
“Well, well,” said Jocunda, “who started this idea?”
“Oh, Father Francesco and she got it up between them,—and nothing will do but I must go, too.”
“Well, now, after all, my dear,” said Jocunda, “do you know, I made a pilgrimage once, and it isn’t so bad. One gets a good deal by it, first and last. Everybody drops something into your hand as you go, and one gets treated as if one were somebody a little above the common; and then in Rome one has a princess or a duchess or some noble lady who washes one’s feet, and gives one a good supper, and perhaps a new suit of clothes, and all that,—and ten to one there comes a pretty little sum of money to boot, if one plays one’s cards well. A pilgrimage isn’t bad, after all;—one sees a world of fine things, and something new every day.”
“But who is to look after our garden and dress our trees?”
“Ah, now, there’s Antonio, and old Meta his mother,” said Jocunda, with a knowing wink at Agnes. “I fancy there are friends there that would lend a hand to keep things together against the little one comes borne. If one is going to be married, a pilgrimage brings good luck in the family. All the saints take it kindly that one comes so far to see them, and are more ready to do a good turn for one when one needs it. The blessed saints are like other folks,—they like to be treated with proper attention.”
This view of pilgrimages from the material stand-point had more effect on the mind of Elsie than the most elaborate appeals of Father Francesco. She began to acquiesce, though with a reluctant air.
Jocunda, seeing her words had made some impression, pursued her advantage on the spiritual ground.
“To be sure,” she added, “I don’t know how it is with you; but I know that I have, one way and another, rolled up quite an account of sins in my life. When I was tramping up and down with my old man through the country,—now in this castle and then in that camp, and now and then in at the sacking of a city or village, or something of the kind,—the saints forgive us!—it does seem as if one got into things that were not of the best sort, in such times. It’s true, it’s been wiped out over and over by the priest; but then a pilgrimage is a good thing to make all sure, in case one’s good works should fall short of one’s sins at last. I can tell you, a pilgrimage is a good round weight to throw into the scale; and when it comes to heaven and hell, you know, my dear, why, one cannot be too careful.”
“Well, that may be true enough,” said Elsie,—“though, as to my sins, I have tried to keep them regularly squared up and balanced as I went along. I have always been regular at confession, and never failed a jot or tittle in what the holy father told me. But there may be something in what you say; one can’t be too sure; and so I’ll e’en school my old bones into taking this tramp.”
That evening, as Agnes was sitting in the garden at sunset, her grandmother bustling in and out, talking, groaning, and, hurrying in her preparations for the anticipated undertaking, suddenly there was a rustling in the branches overhead, and a bouquet of rose-buds fell at her feet. Agnes picked it up, and saw a scrip of paper coiled among the flowers. In a moment remembering the apparition of the cavalier in the church in the morning, she doubted not from whom it came. So dreadful had been the effect of the scene at the confessional, that the thought of the near presence of her lover brought only terror. She turned pale; her hands shook. She shut her eyes, and prayed that she might not be left to read the paper; and then, summoning all her resolution, she threw the bouquet with force over the wall. It dropped down, down, down the gloomy, shadowy abyss, and was lost in the damp caverns below.
The
