The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 43, May, 1861 Creator   By: Various

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. VII. MAY, 1861. NO. XLIII.

AGNES OF SORRENTO.

CHAPTER I.

THE OLD TOWN.

The setting sunbeams slant over the antique gateway of Sorrento, fusing into a golden bronze the brown freestone vestments of old Saint Antonio, who with his heavy stone mitre and upraised hands has for centuries kept watch thereupon.

A quiet time he has of it up there in the golden Italian air, in petrified act of blessing, while orange lichens and green mosses from year to year embroider quaint patterns on the seams of his sacerdotal vestments, and small tassels of grass volunteer to ornament the folds of his priestly drapery, and golden showers of blossoms from some more hardy plant fall from his ample sleeve cuffs. Little birds perch and chitter and wipe their beaks unconcernedly, now on the tip of his nose and now on the point of his mitre, while the world below goes on its way pretty much as it did when the good saint was alive, and, in despair of the human brotherhood, took to preaching to the birds and the fishes.

Whoever passed beneath this old arched gateway, thus saint guarded, in the year of our Lord's grace , might have seen under its shadow, sitting opposite to a stand of golden oranges, the little Agnes.