ditates on some untold
joy. As she was crossing the court to come towards her uncle, her eye
was attracted by the sparkle of something on the ground, and, stooping,
she picked up a heart-shaped locket, curiously made of a large amethyst,
and fastened with a golden arrow. As she pressed upon this, the locket
opened and disclosed to her view a folded paper. Her mood at this moment
was so calm and elevated that she received the incident with no start or
shiver of the nerves. To her it seemed a Providential token, which would
probably bring to her some further knowledge of this mysterious being
who had been so especially confided to her intercessions.

Agnes had learned of the Superior of the Convent the art of reading
writing, which would never have been the birthright of the peasant-girl
in her times, and the moon had that dazzling clearness which revealed
every letter. She stood by the parapet, one hand lying in the white
blossoming alyssum which filled its marble crevices, while she read and
seriously pondered the contents of the paper.

TO AGNES.

Sweet saint, sweet lady, may a sinful soul
Approach thee with an offering of love,
And lay at thy dear feet a weary heart
That loves thee, as it loveth God above!
If blessed Mary may without a stain
Receive the love of sinners most defiled,
If the fair saints that walk with her in white
Refuse not love from earth's most guilty child,
Shouldst thou, sweet lady, then that love deny
Which all-unworthy at thy feet is laid?
Ah, gentlest angel, be not more severe
Than the dear heavens unto a loving prayer!
Howe'er unworthily that prayer be said,
Let thine acceptance be like that on high!

There might have been times in Agnes's life when the reception of this
note would have astonished and perplexed her; but the whole strain of
thought and conversation this evening had been in exalted and poetical
regions, and the soft stillness of the hour, the wonderful calmness
and clearness of the moonlight, all seemed in unison with the strange
incident that had occurred, and with the still stranger tenor of the
paper. The soft melancholy, half-religious tone of it was in accordance
with the whole undercurrent of her life, and prevented that start of
alarm which any homage of a more worldly form might have excited. It
is not to be wondered at, therefore, that she read it many times with
pauses and intervals of deep thought, and then with a movement of
natura