nymph,--an expression so delicate and shadowy that it seemed to address
itself only to finer natures. It was as if all the silent, patient woe
and discouragement of a dumb antiquity had been congealed into this
memorial. Agnes was often conscious, when a child, of being saddened by
it, and yet drawn towards it with a mysterious attraction.

About this fountain, under the shadow of bending rose-trees and yellow
jessamines, was a circle of garden-seats, adopted also from the ruins
of the past. Here a graceful Corinthian capital, with every white
acanthus-leaf perfect, stood in a mat of acanthus-leaves of Nature's own
making, glossy green and sharply cut; and there was a long portion of a
frieze sculptured with graceful dancing figures; and in another place a
fragment of a fluted column, with lycopodium and colosseum vine hanging
from its fissures in graceful draping. On these seats Agnes had dreamed
away many a tranquil hour, making garlands of violets, and listening to
the marvellous legends of old Jocunda.

In order to understand anything of the true idea of conventual life in
those days, we must consider that books were as yet unknown, except
as literary rarities, and reading and writing were among the rare
accomplishments of the higher classes; and that Italy, from the time
that the great Roman Empire fell and broke into a thousand shivers, had
been subject to a continual series of conflicts and struggles, which
took from life all security. Norman, Dane, Sicilian, Spaniard,
Frenchman, and German mingled and struggled, now up and now down; and
every struggle was attended by the little ceremonies of sacking towns,
burning villages, and routing out entire populations to utter misery and
wretchedness. During these tumultuous ages, those buildings consecrated
by a religion recognized alike by all parties afforded to misfortune the
only inviolable asylum, and to feeble and discouraged spirits the only