"I have somewhat to ask of thee, my Father."
"Say on."
"That thou wilt receive me into the Holy Sisterhood of St. Francis—as a lay sister; that if I find the world more weary than I can bear, I may be sure of a retreat which thou my faithful friend and spiritual Father will have prepared for me. So that the act of my admission may be known only to thee and me and the directors of the Chapter of St. Francis, and to the Holy Sisterhood, of which I shall be one—yet living in the world, so long as my duty shall call me."
"Thou hast deserved it by thy constancy," he said. "And may the Holy Madonna be gracious to thee: and our blessed St. Francis sing to thy sorrowing soul sweet measures of content, by the voices of 'his brothers, the birds of the air.'"
It was evening, and the Queen had bidden him to her summer terrace over the gardens, where in the luxuriant shrubberies below them the birds were vying with each other in the loud-voiced evening orisons for which the brief flame of the Cyprian sunset was ever a signal.
"The years will make of thee a poet, my Father," Caterina said, smiling at the turn of phrase so unusual from his lips.
"It is not the years but thou, my Daughter, who hast taught me that beauty may be holy and lift the soul."