"Kissed your forehead!" said Jocunda, "here's a pretty go! it isn't like
you, Agnes, to let him."

"He did it before I knew," said Agnes. "Grandmamma reproved him, and
then he seemed to repent, and gave this ring for the shrine of Saint
Agnes."

"And a pretty one it is, too," said Jocunda. "We haven't a prettier in
all our treasury. Not even the great emerald the Queen gave is better in
its way than this."

"And he asked you to pray for him?" said Mother Theresa.

"Yes, mother dear; he looked right into my eyes and made me look into
his, and made me promise;--and I knew that holy virgins never refused
their prayers to any one that asked, and so I followed their example."

"I'll warrant me he was only mocking at you for a poor little fool,"
said Jocunda; "the gallants of our day don't believe much in prayers."

"Perhaps so, Jocunda," said Agnes, gravely; "but if that be the case, he
needs prayers all the more."

"Yes," said Mother Theresa. "Remember the story of the blessed Saint
Dorothea,--how a wicked young nobleman mocked at her, when she was going
to execution, and said, 'Dorothea, Dorothea, I will believe, when you
shall send me down some of the fruits and flowers of Paradise'; and she,
full of faith, said, 'To-day I will send them'; and, wonderful to tell,
that very day, at evening, an angel came to the young man with a basket
of citrons and roses, and said, 'Dorothea sends thee these, wherefore