"I should like to be such a one," said Agnes. "I often think, when I visit the sisters at the Convent, that I long to be one of them."
"A pretty story!" said Dame Elsie, who had heard the last words,—"go into a convent and leave your poor grandmother all alone, when she has toiled night and day for so many years to get a dowry for you and find you a worthy husband!"
"I don't want any husband in this world, grandmamma," said Agnes.
"What talk is this? Not want a good husband to take care of you when your poor old grandmother is gone? Who will provide for you?"
"He who took care of the blessed Saint Agnes, grandmamma."
"Saint Agnes, to be sure! That was a great many years ago, and times have altered since then;—in these days girls must have husbands. Isn't it so, brother Antonio?"
"But if the darling hath a vocation?" said the artist, mildly.
"Vocation! I'll see to that! She sha'n't have a vocation! Suppose I'm going to delve, and toil, and spin, and wear myself to the bone, and have her slip through my fingers at last with a vocation? No, indeed!"
"Indeed, dear grandmother, don't be angry!" said Agnes. "I will do just as you say,—only I don't want a husband."
"Well, well, my little heart,—one thing at a time; you sha'n't have him till you say yes willingly," said Elsie, in a mollified tone.