Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

led :
" As the Signora already knows, I went into the church, and
there, just as she beheld her yesterday, was Blind Agnese
kneeling before the altar. It seems to ba her natural position.
I never saw her in any other nt her prayers. Not liking to
disturb her, I went back again, and returning in half an hour
found her still in the same attitude of devotion. This gave nie
a feeling of curious interest about lur, so I waited until nhe
rose cf her own accord, and then followed her to yonder orange
grove, and to the fountain, where an old woman sits preparing
iced water and lemonade. If the Signora ever passes that way
and feels weary with her walk, she will find a chair placed
pleasantly in the shade the perfume of the orange and acacia
will revive her the lemonade is excellent and then the Signora
will be doiug an act of charity to Blind Agnese, for that
old woman is her adopted mother."
" That old woman I know her well. But is not, then,
Agnese Irer real 1 '
grandchild?
"God only knows to whom the orphan really belongs. I
questioned tho old woman, but all she could tell was that she
herself had been an itinerant water-seller, and that one day, in
the course of her trade, she had offered refreshments to a for-
eign lady sitting at the corner of the street with an infant in
her arms. The lady eagerly accepted a glass of water, but be-
fore she c nld carry it to her lips she fainted away. Happily,
she had fallen into the hands of a good Samaritan. The old
woman had her carried to her own home; but it was a hopeless
case the poor lady was dying."
" Dying !" said Lady Ornnmoie, in a strange, unnatural tone.
" Of what, I pray you, was she dying ?"
" Poor lady !
of hunger in the flist instance, but I fear of a
broken heart in the second. She had not long to live,
but she had time, at least, to tell her story before she died."
" And that story ?"
" It was ii sad one. She was not of Italy; but in the distant
love. It was I who spoke in the bitterness of my poul, (o
think how religion could ever be made a source of disunion between
child and parent."
" Her heart was always loving and forgiving," said the lady,
with difficulty repressing her tears.
" The Signora knew her, then?"
" Go on, frieud. What next ?"
" But little, Poor lady ! her story was as short as it was
sad. She married a Catholic, became one, and displeased her
mother. Still, in her husband's love and the approval of her
own conscience, she was happy; and so she might have remained
to tliis very hour, had it not been for another law of
that, unhappy land, by which, as well as I could understand it,
one brother conforming to the king's religion might claim the
property of the elder."
Lady Oranmore groaned aloud.
"The gentleman," pursued Francesco, "was one of three
brothers ; and the youngest of the three was such a one as I
IU.1M> .If/.V/.'A'/:.
Blessed Sacrament npon linen which only snch innocent hands
have touched. And then, Ho so loved the httlo ones the
sweet and lo\ing Jesus. {Surely the h a not forgotten
how lie hiiili- tin-in to approach, :ind would not havo them to bo
forbidden, seeing that of such is tho have described. So one night just
kingdom of heaven."
Liuly Orauinoro was silent. Tho loving faith of the old
man seemed to rebuke her own hardness and incredulity
of heart. And, finding she made no answer, Francesco pro-
after tho birth of the blind !i child,
]
the sick lady, iho new-born babe, and another child, P;
years older, out of the house, and s> nt them adrift upon tiio
world."
Lady Oranmore now sobbed aloud,
"The Siguora has a ,-t sho can feel for the d!
of those poor outcasts of religion. That night sho took refuge
in the house of a poor retainer, who braved the mixer of tho
new lord to show his gratitude to the old one. Itwr.s ne
sary, however, that they should fly the country ; for tho renegade,
not content with reducing his brother to beggary, hud
likewise accused him of malpractices against the goverum
On hearing these sad tidings, the mother of the lady relent
she came and begged her daughter to reside with her ; but
wife felt it both her duty and her happiness to cleave tj her
husband ; so a very few hours afterwards they were togc'
on the wide waters of the ocean, seeking with their poor blind
child, in a foreign land, tho protection denied them in their
own."
" And the eldest child?" asked Lady Oranmore qnickly.
"Ah!" said Francesco, shaking his head sadly, "that was
the deepest grief of all, I think, to the dying lady. She could
not tell what became of it. It must have been left behind in
the hurry and confusion of their flight, which of course, was
made in the hours of darkness. But unhappily they miit
on boarding the vessel in which they were to sail, and no
entreaty could prevail on the captain to delay their
even for an hour. Poor mother ! She never mentioned
lost one without piteous moans. The murder of her husband
scarce seemed to have made such an impression on her
niind."
"Murdered! Good God! was then poor Edward murdered?"
Francesco looked curiously at the lady.
" Ill-luck attended them from first to last," he said. "They
were scarcely in the Italian seas before their vessel was attacked
and taken by pirates. The poor gentleman fell
fighting gallantly under the very eyes of his unhappy wife."
"Alas! alas !" cried Lady Oranmore, weepiug ; "my poor,
unhappy May, a prisoner in the hands of pirates !"
" She was not with them long. Two or three Neapolitan ves-
sels were in sight, so the pirates took everything of value out of
the ship, and set it on fire. The lady was rescued from t hi s grave
of mingled fire and water, and lauded on the coast from whence,
with her infant in her arms, she begged her way to Naples.
Happily she had learned our language from her husband, who
land from whence she came religion, it seems, is made a subject
of oppression; and he who dares to worship God after the
fuhhion of the auci; ut Church is liable to fine, imprisonment,
"
and perhaps to death.
"No, no," said Lady Oranmore, "not now to death, my
"
friend. But tell me of the lady.
" Her mother, it seems, was of the king's religion, and made
it part of her creed to hate all who did not think lit to profess
it."
"Was it thus she spoke of her mother?" Lady Oranmore
asked, iu a quick, agitated voice.
"Alas, no, Siguora !
had been brought up among us education being, it seems,
one of the blessings
Her words were full of tenderness and
denied in his own country to men of the
proscribed religion and ; yet, starving, heart-broken, helpL
and a stranger, how she managed to make her way so far has
ever been a mystery to me."
" Go on, old man ! What next? I conjure you what next ?"
"
Why, finding herself so near to death, she sent for a priest
to make her peace with heaven. From him she received all
the last rites of our holy religion. The old woman has often
told me since, that it was a touching sight to see ;
would content her but she must have her infant in hi
when she received Jesus in the Viaticum ;
for nothing
so I always think it
was then and there the child imbibed her strange love for Him
iu His Sacrament of Love. Surely He passed in that hour
from the bosom of the mother into the heart of the child."
" And then ?" sobbed Lady Oranmore.
"And then," echoed Francesco, "she died as might be expected.
In peace she died. God stilled the vie lue
storm which had swept her young days
in sorrow into the
grave. To His fatherly tenderness she consigned herchil
and in the sacrunenlal embraces of her Saviour slie I
went down to death, amid such sentiments of love and j>< ace
as St. John may have felt when resting hia head on the v.
bosom of the living Lord."
" And left no message no memorial ?"
" I had forgotten. She :, L g to the old wai