ut of a bed of moss.

"Ah, that indeed, my dear!" said the artist, "Would you had seen the
place where I painted it! I stopped there to recite my prayers one
morning; 't was by the side of a beautiful cascade, and all the ground
was covered with these lovely cyclamens, and the air was musky with
their fragrance.--Ah, the bright rose-colored leaves! I can get no color
like them, unless some angel would bring me some from those sunset
clouds yonder."

"And oh, dear uncle, what lovely primroses!" pursued Agnes, taking up
another paper.

"Yes, child; but you should have seen them when I was coming down the
south side of the Apennines;--these were everywhere so pale and sweet,
they seemed like the humility of our Most Blessed Mother in her lowly
mortal state. I am minded to make a border of primroses to the leaf in
the Breviary where is the 'Hail, Mary!'--for it seems as if that flower
doth ever say, 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord!'"

"And what will you do with the cyclamen, uncle? does not that mean
something?"

"Yes, daughter," replied the monk, readily entering into that symbolical
strain which permeated all the heart and mind of the religious of his
day,--"I _can_ see a meaning in it. For you see that the cyclamen
puts forth its leaves in early spring deeply engraven with mystical
characters, and loves cool shadows, and moist, dark places, but comes
at length to wear a royal crown of crimson; and it seems to me like the
saints who dwell in convents and other prayerful places, and have the
word of God graven in their hearts in youth, till these blossom into
fervent love, and they are crowned with royal graces."

"Ah!" sighed Agnes, "how beautiful and how blessed to be among such!"

"Thou sayest well, dear child. Blessed are the flowers of God that grow
in cool solitudes, and have never been profaned by the hot sun and dust
of this world!"

"I should like to be such a one," said Agnes. "I often think, when I
visit the sisters at the Convent, that I long to be one of them."

"A pretty story!" said Dame Elsie, who had heard the last words,--"go
into a convent and leave your poor grandmother all alone, when she has
toiled night and day for so many years to get a dowry for you and find
you a worthy husband!"

"I don't want any husband in this world, grandmamma," said Agnes.

"What talk is this? Not want a good husband to take care of you when
your poor old grandmother is gone? Who will provide for you?"

"He w