But," she added, with hesitation,
"oh, uncle, you promised to visit _him_!"
"Never fear, little Agnes,--I will do that. I go to him this very
night,--now, even,--for the daylight waxes too scant for me to work
longer."
"But you will come back and stay with us to-night, uncle?"
"Yes, I will,--but to-morrow morning I must be up and away with the
birds; and I have labored hard all day to finish the drawings for the
lad who shall carve the shrine, that he may busy himself thereon in my
absence."
"Then you will come back?"
"Certainly, dear heart, I will come back; of that be assured. Pray God
it be before long, too."
So saying, the good monk drew his cowl over his head, and, putting his
portfolio of drawings under his arm, began to wend his way towards the
old town.
Agnes watched him departing, her heart in a strange flutter of eagerness
and solicitude. What were these dreadful troubles which were coming upon
her good uncle?--who those enemies of the Church that beset that saintly
teacher he so much looked up to? And why was lawless violence allowed
to run such riot in Italy, as it had in the case of the unfortunate
cavalier? As she thought things over, she was burning with a repressed
desire to _do_ something herself to abate these troubles.
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