"Beautiful in person, of a highly cultivated and refined mind, holy and pure in thought and deed," Henry VI seemed fated to bear every possible pain of mind and body. Yet his life held blissful periods, and none, perhaps, so full of sweetness and joy as the time he spent as a quasi-shepherd and hermit-tutor. DAVID BEARNE, S.J.

AT BETHLEHEM

O MARY'S BABE ! O wondrous Child!
Who came this bitter night to bless
The fallen earth, the sin-defiled,

To lift it from its sinfulness,
To tremble in the icy blast,

Which moans around this crib of Thine,
While angry clouds rush swiftly past,
And blushing stars refuse to shine.

O wondrous One! O fair Christ-Child!
We marvel at Thee lying there,
For ah! we know Thee self-exiled

Through boundless love, from all that's fair,
From unimagined happiness

In Thy great Father's home of light,
Where comes not pain nor weariness—
Oh! dost Thou dream of it to-night?

Ah! Baby, through the coming years
I see the path Thy feet will tread,
All strewn with thorns and moist with tears
Whence every ray of hope seems fled.
I hear the Jewish taunt that Thou,

A Nazarene, couldst not be King-
Thou hadst no crown upon Thy brow,

No sceptre in Thy hand didst bring.

No mighty Captain, Thou, to lead
To glorious battle Israel's hosts.
Beneath a tyrant's yoke they bleed,
O'er conquered Israel Cæsar boasts.
O chosen people, favoured race.

Your God, your King, you would not see
Till hung that pallid, awful face
In death, on darkened Calvary.

But now the Baby sweetly sleeps,
Like all the infant sons of men ;
And Mary o'er her Treasure keeps
A silent prayerful vigil-when
O'er all the quiet hills there breaks

The music of an unseen choir-
An angel band that music wakes,
An angel's fingers touch that lyre !

Then "Peace on earth, goodwill to men,"
The watching, wondering shepherds hear.
Go, seek your King, ye humble men,
His royal court He keepeth near.
O Mary's Babe ! O wondrous Child!
O'er whose poor crib the angels sing,
This bleak December night and wild,
Thou art, indeed, the Promised King.

MARY CORBET.

THE TEST

WHEN I see an infant on its mother's breast,
Smiling as she presses to its lips a kiss,

Loving Faith delighteth in this simple test:

"Once my God and Saviour was a babe like this!

Vol. XXXIV.-No. 391.

DUNMARA

CHAPTER XXXIV

STUDIES IN THE ACADEMY

IN her plan of action two distinct ideas were prominent : she must take her sea-stained letter at once in hand, and knock at that door in Wimpole Street; also she must, without delay, apply for admittance as a student to the female school at the "West End Academy of Arts." There was no time to be lost, for her debt to Dr. McDawdle had to be discharged as quickly as possible. The doctor had implored her to make him her banker without scruple; but Ellen shook her head at the idea of accepting more money than that which had been already borrowed. She would work and win gold, and pay her debts, and in time, perhaps, be enabled to benefit Dr. Drummond's children. Alas! but gold is not so easily won.

One day she spent in making herself at home in her high chamber. Her landlady, whose parlour was over-stocked with birds, sold her a goldfinch in his cage for a small sum, also a green box of mould, containing some evergreens. These furnished her window. A few books on the shelf, her work basket on the table, her portfolio against the wall, made the place look almost familiar. Her next step was to visit an artist's colour-shop in Brompton, and provide herself with materials for her work. When her easel stood by the window, crowned with an untouched canvas, her palette and brushes lying by the side of the fascinating colour-box, she felt that her new home in the strange city was a pleasant place, a spot of peace, perhaps (might it be?) of inspiration. And she said, fingering her colour-tubes, "You queer little morsels of nasty invaluable matter, you are mere gaudy dross on the palette of the vulgar, but pure gold on the reverent brush! You little bits of magic which will only weave your brilliant spells under the fingers of genius, I am afraid to touch you."

She prepared for her visit with trepidation. It was a sharp grey day; the streets looked as if they had made up their

minds to the visitation of winter. The shop-windows were filled with warm clothing. The broad face of London looked as massively hewn, as powerfully concentrated, as selfishly callous as it ever looks. Ellen threaded footpaths, and hurried over crossings, with a wild wonder and a strange exultation beating in her blood and quickening her feet. Every one was, had been and would be busy here; here it was good to work. Here great thoughts had been conceived; here great creations had been accomplished. Here any day, by a chance, one might pass right through the shadow of the kings and princes of the aristocracy of genius. Tennyson might make way for you on the footpath. Any great artist might pass you, having just left his work wet upon the easel.

She shrank from the omnibus, and was too poor to think of a cab, so, having studied her map, she set out to brave the London streets on foot, finding that she could go along quietly and safely enough, and yet observe a good deal from behind her thick veil; experiencing, for the first time, that strange feeling, the consciousness of her own rill of life, which a minute since was a rushing river in the solitudes, having been suddenly sucked into, and become a drop amidst a universe of waters. She was wrapped out of her own identity, nothing remaining to her but the instinct and intelligence which carried her feet safely through the trampling of horses and the pressing of crowds.

Arrived at Wimpole Street, Ellen went along the pavement with slackened speed and a beating heart, glancing at the high important walls, and the formal flights of steps, and wondering vaguely if the people who dined every day behind those solemn dining-room windows never wearied of looking at those rows of iron spikes opposite the panes. Some of the houses looked to her grand and luxurious, with gay gleams of colour hanging about the drawing-room windows. Life was probably there taken at the butterfly estimate, and its accounts kept on mother-o'-pearl tablets and slung to a chatelaine. Or perhaps it was used upon the bee principle, the sweets sipped in the sunshine of home being discharged from heart and brain in honey for the surrounding world. Ellen could fancy serene, delicious states of existence behind those curtains. Others of these houses were solemnly dingy and dark, with lugubrious

visages, and blinds drawn with a drowsy supercilious expression as if for very pride they preferred to wrap the shadows about, and disdained to clean their windows, or scrape their bricks. But whether gay or dull, they were unanimous in gazing arrogantly down upon Ellen from out of all their high windows.

The house at which Ellen knocked belonged to one of the dusky family. The curtains looked sombre behind the unshining glass, the door was black, and the knocker, a lion's head, growled under her hand.

The ordeal was short, Mr. Waldron was out of town, always spent the winters out of town, being in ill-health; had left London a few weeks since; would not return till the springApril or May perhaps.

Dusk was extinguishing the feeble November daylight when she re-entered her Kensington attic; but the pains of discouragement had been left behind upon the road; dropped piecemeal like the bread that the boy crumbled in the story. And the birds strong of wing, trust and resolution, had surely pecked them all up, for they were seen no more. The little maid with short red arms, who waited on Ellen's slight need, had lit a fire in the narrow grate, and, utterly tired, Ellen dropped down before it, and took off her bonnet in the warm shine, spreading her hands for comfort to the ruddy glow.

So she sat very long, lost in planning, till a clear, wintry moon came to the window, like the dear face of a friend unexpectedly crossing your threshold, and turned its large, calm gaze on the room and its contents. It seemed to say, Cease brooding in the dark. Let us pour in some light upon these difficult matters. Look around and see how things appear from my point of view." And very spiritually calm and sweet they did begin to look. All kinds of winged genii came clustering round the new easel-a tripod of light-and promised wonderful help against the morrow, with a brave purpose marked out for the future. Ellen drew her blind and lit her lamp, and produced her pencils for an evening's work.

The West-End Academy was not far distant from the Kensington attic, and Elen had no great difficulty in obtaining admission as a student. For the first week she went and came, speaking to no one and bending over her drawing-board, intent upon her work. A place had been assigned her in the most