We need not describe this rural residence, except to say that everything in it breathed contentment and happiness. It was one of those genial days which a Roman winter supplies. The rugged Apennines were slightly powdered with snow; the ground was barely crisp, the atmosphere transparent, the sunshine glowing, and the heavens cloudless. A few greyish curls of melting smoke from the cottages, and the leafless vines, alone told that it was December. Everything living seemed to know and love the gentle mistress of the place. The doves came and perched upon her shoulder or her hand; the lambs in the paddock frisked, and ran to her the moment she approached, and took the green fragrant herbs which she brought them, with evident pleasure; but none owned her kindly sway so much as old Molossus, the enormous watchdog. Chained beside the gate, so fierce was he, that none but a few favorite domestics durst go near him. But no sooner did Agnes appear than he crouched down, and wagged his bushy tail, and whined, till he was let loose; for now a child might approach him. He never left his mistress’s side; he followed her like a lamb; and if she sat down he would lie at her feet, looking into her face, delighted to receive, on his huge head, the caresses of her slender hand.
It was indeed a peaceful day; sometimes calm and quiet, soft and tender, as the three spoke together of the morning’s happiness, and of the happier morning of which it was a pledge, above the liquid amber of their present skies; sometimes cheerful and even merry, as the two took Cæcilia to task for the trick she had played them. And she laughed cheerily, as she always did, and told them she had a better trick in store for them yet; which was, that she would cut them out when that next morning came; for she intended to be the first at it, and not the last.
Fabiola had, in the meantime, come to the villa to pay her first visit to Agnes after her calamity, and to thank her for her sympathy. She walked forward, but stopped suddenly on coming near the spot where this happy group were assembled. For when she beheld the two who could see the outward brightness of heaven, hanging over her who seemed to hold all its splendor within her soul, she saw at once, in the scene, the verification of her dream. Yet unwilling to intrude herself unexpectedly upon them, and anxious to find Agnes alone, and not with her own slave and a poor blind girl, she turned away before she was noticed, and walked towards a distant part of the grounds. Still she could not help asking herself, why she could not be cheerful and happy as they? Why was there a gulf between them?
But the day was not destined to finish without its clouds; it would have been too blissful for earth. Besides Fabiola, another person had started from Rome, to pay a less welcome visit to Agnes. This was Fulvius, who had never forgotten the assurances of Fabius, that his fascinating address and brilliant ornaments had turned the weak head of Agnes. He had waited till the first days of mourning were over, and he respected the house in which he had once received such a rude reception, or rather suffered such a summary ejectment. Having ascertained that, for the first time, she had gone without her parents, or any male attendants, to her suburban villa, he considered it a good opportunity for pressing his suit. He rode out of the Nomentan gate, and was soon at Agnes’s. He dismounted; said he wished to see her on important business, and, after some importunity, was admitted by the porter. He was directed along a walk, at the end of which she would be found. The sun was declining, and her companions had strolled to a distance, and she was sitting alone in a bright sunny spot, with old Molossus crouching at her feet. The slightest approach to a growl from him, rare when he was with her, made her look up from her work of tying together such winter flowers as the others brought her, while she suppressed, by raising a finger, this expression of instinctive dislike.
Fulvius came near with a respectful, but freer air than usual, as one already assured of his request.
“I have come, Lady Agnes,” he said, “to renew to you the expression of my sincere regard; and I could not have chosen a better day, for brighter or fairer scarcely the summer sun could have bestowed.”
“Fair, indeed, and bright it has been to me,” replied Agnes, borne back in mind to the morning’s scene; “and no sun in my life has ever given me fairer,—it can only give me one more fair.”
Fulvius was flattered, as if the compliment was to his presence, and answered, “The day, no doubt you mean, of your espousals with one who may have won your heart.”
“That is indeed done,” she replied, as if unconsciously; “and this is his own precious day.”