Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, no. 45, July, 1861 | Page 3

anything but her prayers,
is Cattarina. Our Lady be gracious to me! I think I got my vocation
from Saint Martha, and if it wasn't for me, I don't know what would
become of things in the Convent. Why, since I came here, our
conserves, done up in fig-leaf packages, have had quite a run at Court,
and our gracious Queen herself was good enough to send an order for a
hundred of them last week. I could have laughed to see how puzzled
the Mother Theresa looked;--much she knows about conserves! I

suppose she thinks Gabriel brings them straight down from Paradise,
done up in leaves of the tree of life. Old Jocunda knows what goes to
their making up; she's good for something, if she is old and twisted;
many a scrubby old olive bears fat berries," said the old portress,
chuckling.
"Oh, dear Jocunda," said Agnes, "why must you go this minute? I want
to talk with you about so many things!"
"Bless the sweet child! it does want its old Jocunda, does it?" said the
old woman, in the tone with which one caresses a baby. "Well, well, it
should, then! Just wait a minute, till I go and see that our holy Saint
Cattarina hasn't fallen a-praying over the conserving-pan. I'll be back in
a moment."
So saying, she hobbled off briskly, and Agnes, sitting down on the
fragment sculptured with dancing nymphs, began abstractedly pulling
her flowers towards her, shaking from them the dew of the fountain.
Unconsciously to herself, as she sat there, her head drooped into the
attitude of the marble nymph, and her sweet features assumed the same
expression of plaintive and dreamy thoughtfulness; her heavy dark
lashes lay on her pure waxen cheeks like the dark fringe of some
tropical flower. Her form, in its drooping outlines, scarcely yet showed
the full development of womanhood, which after-years might unfold
into the ripe fulness of her countrywomen. Her whole attitude and
manner were those of an exquisitively sensitive and highly organized
being, just struggling into the life of some mysterious new inner
birth,--into the sense of powers of feeling and being hitherto unknown
even to herself.
"Ah," she softly sighed to herself, "how little I am! how little I can do!
Could I convert one soul! Ah, holy Dorothea, send down the roses of
heaven into his soul, that he also may believe!"
"Well, my little beauty, you have not finished even one garland," said
the voice of old Jocunda, bustling up behind her. "Praise to Saint
Martha, the conserves are doing well, and so I catch a minute for my
little heart."
So saying, she sat down with her spindle and flax by Agnes, for an
afternoon gossip.
"Dear Jocunda, I have heard you tell stories about spirits that haunt
lonesome places. Did you ever hear about any in the gorge?"

"Why, bless the child, yes,--spirits are always pacing up and down in
lonely places. Father Anselmo told me that; and he had seen a priest
once that had seen that in the Holy Scriptures themselves,--so it must
be true."
"Well, did you ever hear of their making the most beautiful music?"
"Haven't I?" said Jocunda,--"to be sure I have,--singing enough to draw
the very heart out of your body,--it's an old trick they have. Why, I
want to know if you never heard about the King of Amalfi's son
coming home from fighting for the Holy Sepulchre? Why, there's rocks
not far out from this very town where the Sirens live; and if the King's
son hadn't had a holy bishop on board, who slept every night with a
piece of the true cross under his pillow, the green ladies would have
sung him straight into perdition. They are very fair-spoken at first, and
sing so that a man gets perfectly drunk with their music, and longs to
fly to them; but they suck him down at last under water, and strangle
him, and that's the end of him."
"You never told me about this before, Jocunda."
"Haven't I, child? Well, I will now. You see, this good bishop, he
dreamed three times that they would sail past those rocks, and he was
told to give all the sailors holy wax from an altar-candle to stop their
ears, so that they shouldn't hear the music. Well, the King's son said he
wanted to hear the music, so he wouldn't have his ears stopped; but he
told 'em to tie him to the mast, so that he could hear it, but not to mind
a word he said, if he begged 'em ever so hard to untie him.
"Well, you see they did it; and the old bishop, he had his ears sealed up
tight, and so did all the men; but