"Bless my soul!" she said, "brother Antonio has a marvellous power of
lungs; he is at it the first thing in the morning. It always used to be
so; when he was a boy, he would wake me up before daylight, singing.

"He is happy, like the birds," said Agnes, "because he flies near
heaven."

"Like enough: he was always a pious boy; his prayers and his pencil were
ever uppermost: but he was a poor hand at work: he could draw you an
olive-tree on paper; but set him to dress it, and any fool would have
done better."

The morning rites of devotion and the simple repast being over, Elsie
prepared to go to her business. It had occurred to her that the visit
of her brother was an admirable pretext for withdrawing Agnes from the
scene of her daily traffic, and of course, as she fondly supposed,
keeping her from the sight of the suspected admirer.

Neither Agnes nor the monk had disturbed her serenity by recounting the
adventure of the evening before. Agnes had been silent from the habitual
reserve which a difference of nature ever placed between her and her
grandmother,--a difference which made confidence on her side an utter
impossibility. There are natures which ever must be silent to other
natures, because there is no common language between them. In the same
house, at the same board, sharing the same pillow even, are those
forever strangers and foreigners whose whole stock of intercourse is
limited to a few brief phrases on the commonest material wants of life,
and who, as soon as they try to go farther, have no words that are
mutually understood.