out for you. You are neither humpbacked nor cross-eyed, that you
shouldn't have one as well as other girls."

"I don't want one, Jocunda; and I have promised to Saint Agnes to come
here, if she will only get grandmother to consent."

"Bless you, my daughter!" said Mother Theresa; "only persevere and the
way will be opened."

"Well, well," said Jocunda, "we'll see. Come, little one, if you
wouldn't have your flowers wilt, we must go back and look after them."

Reverently kissing the hand of the Abbess, Agnes withdrew with her old
friend, and crossed again to the garden to attend to her flowers.

"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.