Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 | Page 7

straight down
the narrow rocky stairs that led into the gorge, holding her distaff with
its white flax in her hands, and stepping as easily as if she bore no
burden.
Agnes followed her with light, irregular movements, glancing aside
from time to time, as a tuft of flowers or a feathery spray of leaves
attracted her fancy. In a few moments her hands were too full, and her
woollen apron of many-colored stripes was raised over one arm to hold
her treasures, while a hymn to Saint Agnes, which she constantly
murmured to herself, came in little ripples of sound, now from behind a
rock, and now out of a tuft of bushes, to show where the wanderer was
hid. The song, like many Italian ones, would be nothing in English,
--only a musical repetition of sweet words to a very simple and
childlike idea, the _bella, bella, bella_ ringing out in every verse with a
tender joyousness that seemed in harmony with the waving ferns and
pendent flowers and long ivy-wreaths from among which its notes
issued. "Beautiful and sweet Agnes," it said, in a thousand tender
repetitions, "make me like thy little white lamb! Beautiful Agnes, take
me to the green fields where Christ's lambs are feeding! Sweeter than
the rose, fairer than the lily, take me where thou art!"
At the bottom of the ravine a little stream tinkles its way among stones
so mossy in their deep, cool shadow as to appear all verdure; for
seldom the light of the sun can reach the darkness where they lie. A
little bridge, hewn from solid rock, throws across the shrunken stream
an arch much wider than its waters seem to demand; for in spring and

autumn, when the torrents wash down from the mountains, its volume
is often suddenly increased.
This bridge was so entirely and evenly grown over with short thick
moss that it might seem cut of some strange kind of living green velvet,
and here and there it was quaintly embroidered with small blossoming
tufts of white alyssum, or feathers of ferns and maiden's-hair which
shook and trembled to every breeze. Nothing could be lovelier than this
mossy bridge, when some stray sunbeam, slanting up the gorge, took a
fancy to light it up with golden hues, and give transparent greenness to
the tremulous thin leaves that waved upon it.
On this spot Elsie paused a moment, and called back after Agnes, who
had disappeared into one of those deep grottos with which the sides of
the gorge are perforated, and which are almost entirely veiled by the
pendent ivy-wreaths.
"Agnes! Agnes! wild girl! come quick!"
Only the sound of "_Bella, bella Agnella_" came out of the ivy-leaves
to answer her; but it sounded so happy and innocent that Elsie could
not forbear a smile, and in a moment Agnes came springing down with
a quantity of the feathery lycopodium in her hands, which grows
nowhere so well as in moist and dripping places.
Out of her apron were hanging festoons of golden broom, crimson
gladiolus, and long, trailing sprays of ivy; while she held aloft in
triumph a handful of the most superb cyclamen, whose rosy crowns rise
so beautifully above their dark quaint leaves in moist and shady places.
"See, see, grandmother, what an offering I have! Saint Agnes will be
pleased with me to-day; for I believe in her heart she loves flowers
better than gems."
"Well, well, wild one,--time flies, we must hurry." And crossing the
bridge quickly, the grandmother struck into a mossy foot-path that led
them, after some walking, under the old Roman bridge at the gateway
of Sorrento. Two hundred feet above their heads rose the mighty arches,
enamelled with moss and feathered with ferns all the way; and below
this bridge the gorge grew somewhat wider, its sides gradually receding
and leaving a beautiful flat tract of land, which was laid out as an
orange-orchard. The golden fruit was shut in by rocky walls on either
side which here formed a perfect hot-bed, and no oranges were earlier
or finer.

Through this beautiful orchard the two at length emerged from the
gorge upon the sea-sands, where lay the blue Mediterranean swathed in
bands of morning mist, its many-colored waters shimmering with a
thousand reflected lights, and old Capri panting through sultry blue
mists, and Vesuvius with his cloud-spotted sides and smoke-wreathed
top burst into view. At a little distance a boatload of bronzed fishermen
had just drawn in a net, from which they were throwing out a quantity
of sardines, which flapped and fluttered in the sunshine like scales of
silver. The wind blowing freshly bore thousands of little purple waves
to break one after another at the foamy line which lay on the sand.
Agnes ran