“Yes,—­he is beautiful as an angel.”

“I never saw a young man, really,” said the Mother Theresa.  “Uncle Angelo was lame, and had gray hair; and papa was very fat, and had a red face.  Perhaps he looks like our picture of Saint Sebastian;—­I have often thought that I might be in danger of loving a young man that looked like him.”

“Oh, he is more beautiful than that picture or any picture!” said Agnes, fervently; “and, mother, though he is excommunicated, I can’t help feeling that he is as good as he is beautiful.  My uncle had strong hopes that he should restore him to the True Church; and to pray for his soul I am going on this pilgrimage.  Father Francesco says, if I will tear away and overcome this love, I shall gain so much merit that my prayers will have power to save his soul.  Promise me, dear mother, that you and all the sisters will help me with your prayers;—­help me to work out this great salvation, and then I shall be so glad to come back here and spend all my life in prayer!”

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE MOUNTAIN FORTRESS.

And so on a bright spring morning our pilgrims started.  Whoever has traversed the road from Sorrento to Naples, that wonderful path along the high, rocky shores of the Mediterranean, must remember it only as a wild dream of enchantment.  On one side lies the sea, shimmering in bands of blue, purple, and green to the swaying of gentle winds, exhibiting those magical shiftings and changes of color peculiar to these waves.  Near the land its waters are of pale, transparent emerald, while farther out they deepen into blue and thence into a violet-purple, which again, towards the horizon-line, fades into misty pearl-color.  The shores rise above the sea in wild, bold precipices, grottoed into fantastic caverns by the action of the waves, and presenting every moment some new variety of outline.  As the path of the traveller winds round promontories whose mountain-heights are capped by white villages and silvery with olive-groves, he catches the enchanting sea-view, now at this point, and now at another, with Naples glimmering through the mists in the distance, and the purple sides of Vesuvius ever changing with streaks and veins of cloud-shadows, while silver vapors crown the summit.  Above the road the steep hills seem piled up to the sky,—­every spot terraced, and cultivated with some form of vegetable wealth, and the wild, untamable rocks garlanded over with golden broom, crimson gillyflowers, and a thousand other bright adornments.  The road lies through villages whose gardens and orange-orchards fill the air with, sweet scents, and whose rose-hedges sometimes pour a perfect cascade of bloom and fragrance over the walls.