worked hour after hour in the quietest and happiest earnestness. Her
dreams were a constant source of wonder and edification in the Convent,
for they were all of angels and saints; and many a time, after hearing
one, the sisterhood crossed themselves, and the Abbess said, _"Ex oribus
parvulorum."_ Always sweet, dutiful, submissive, cradling herself every
night with a lulling of sweet hymns and infant murmur of prayers, and
found sleeping in her little white bed with her crucifix clasped to her
bosom, it was no wonder that the Abbess thought her the special favorite
of her divine patroness, and, like her, the subject of an early vocation
to be the celestial bride of One fairer than the children of men, who
should snatch her away from all earthly things, to be united to Him in a
celestial paradise.

As the child grew older, she often sat at evening, with wide, wondering
eyes, listening over and over again to the story of the fair Saint
Agnes:--How she was a princess, living in her father's palace, of such
exceeding beauty and grace that none saw her but to love her, yet of
such sweetness and humility as passed all comparison; and how, when a
heathen prince would have espoused her to his son, she said, "Away from
me, tempter! for I am betrothed to a lover who is greater and fairer
than any earthly suitor,--he is so fair that the sun and moon are
ravished by his beauty, so mighty that the angels of heaven are his
servants"; how she bore meekly with persecutions and threatenings and
death for the sake of this unearthly love; and when she had poured out
her blood, how she came to her mourning friends in ecstatic vision, all
white and glistening, with a fair lamb by her side, and bade them weep
not for her, because she was reigning with Him whom on earth she had
preferred to all other lovers. There was also the legend of the fair
Cecilia, the lovely musician whom angels had rapt away to their choirs;
the story of that queenly saint, Catharine, who passed through the