She told you that, did she?" says poor Herbert sulky but crest-fallen. "You are a splendid pair of confidantes." "She asked me to let you know that she hopes you will not repeat the favour. This is her message, and now I have a word to speak from myself. I will not have my friend annoyed. You fall in love with a fresh young lady every month, and and I dare say you have gone through this flower ceremony a score of times. Now, I tell you that Ellen Wilde is a thousand times too good for any brainless boy like you to make her the subject of your impertinent amusement. She is not like your pretty Miss Simprington and the rest of those stupid girls that you "Confound them all!" shouts Herbert. "I say, Felicia, I can't stand your talking to me in this style. You may call me a brainless boy if you like, but I won't tolerate your saying that I make her the subject of my impertinent amusement. It's enough, I think, that she has talked about the thing and laughed at it, without-without-" Tears are standing in the poor lad's eyes, and he turns his back impatiently on his sister. But she follows him, and puts her hand kindly on his shoulder. "Look here, Herbert," she says, "if you feel seriously about this, then it alters the matter quite. She did not laugh, she gave me the message which I have given you, and she seemed displeased. And now I won't tease you again, only mind this, I won't have her annoyed. Good night. I'm to wish you well, and you are to conduct yourself properly; that is our compact. Seal it!" And Miss Felicia offers her fair cheek to her brother. "You're a dear old woman, Felicia; you are, indeed, when you're not too high up in the clouds!" cries Herbert. And this little interview ends. ROSA MULHOLLAND GILBERT. (To be continued.) FRIENDS ALONE we wandered where the flowers In that wide field where crystal Avon Alone we went, arm linked in arm, The dusty highroad to the town Was still, no wheels went up or down, And o'er the bridge the sunlight streaming Threw in the river its arches brown. About us lay the great-eyed kine, As Eastern kings at ease recline, And life itself was priceless pleasure, And Earth seemed more than one half divine. Then languid through the August heat, Weaving our plans from golden fancies And there and then we earnest boys Should still by both be eased or heightened Knit in a friendship no time destroys. Homeward we paced the long day o'er, And fared afar with rosy daybreak, He labours now for God somewhere, Perchance he quite forgets the river, 'Tis well. All we of woman born Pass like the shadows on the corn When breezes move with light step o'er it In hillside field of an early morn. We come and go, and heaven sends Us undeserving kindly friends, And takes them though we long to keep them When they and we have fulfilled our ends. So it were rash in youthful pride To spurn the least that seeks our side: The friendship that once has been denied? J. W. ATKINSON, S.J. THE HARVEST "COME," they cried to me, "forth to the sowing. For now the good warm wind is blowing, Come set thy corn." But I in Dreamland had been a-sowing, "Come," cried they to me, "come, no delaying- Come sow thy wheat." But I in my Dreamland, dream fields I tended, Then came the harvest, gladly they garnered, Gladly and gaily they brought in the wheat. VOL. XXXIV.-No. 392. AGNES BLUndell. G A A BOOK ON LITTLE CHILDREN * MONG the notable honours conferred on that "Age of years of human life, must surely be ranked the serious, elaborate, and highly literary work just brought out by the wellknown French Jesuit author, Father Victor Delaporte. When we say "serious," we hint at nothing of over-solemnity or dullness. We mean, above all, that the writer has made his work a labour of love and applied to it the full measure of his talents. Serious," undoubtedly, the book is in another sense. Its sub-title, "Histoire, dogme et littérature" sufficiently indicates that mere semi-infantine prettinesses do not occupy its pages. It has the seriousness which springs from a Christian view of human life all in its stages; it has that maxima reverentia so often quoted as the due of the innocent child, but perhaps no less frequently disregarded. Hence we naturally find Father Delaporte impatient of the vapid triflings, fantastic imaginings, and false theorizings which have been sometimes poured out upon innocent heads by those who have not seen the child in the light of the Gospel. He is very severe, for instance, on Victor Hugo, whom some have hailed as the poet of childhood: "Il me répugne," he says, " de célébrer les petites âmes baptisées et pures avec les strophes ou les alexandrins, même superbes, de cet homme qui a profané tant de choses, y compris son génie et l'enfance. Que de fausse bonhomie, de fausse naiveté, de mievrerie sénile et drôle, dans ces poémes; où l'on voit, par exemple, des questions comme celle-ci, qu'une petite fille pose aux bons anges, en arrivant au ciel : "Est-ce qu'il est permis de cueillir des etoiles ?" And there are even worse stains on "L'Art d'être Grand Père," than occasional lapses into silliness or bad taste. Wherefore, Father Delaporte will not quote from Victor Hugo. But whatever be Father Delaporte's omissions, there can be no doubt as to the interest and charm, as well as the seriousness, * Les Petits Enfants de cinq ans et au-dessous; Histoire, Dogme et Littérature. Par le Père V. Delaporte, S.J. Paris: Lecoffre; Bruxelles: Dewit, 1906. of the abundant material he has set before us. Interesting facts as to what little children have been in the past, as to child-geniuses and child-saints, as to the possibly more attractive ordinary baby or four-year-old; excellent and gracefullyconveyed counsel as to how the baby of the present day ought to be prepared for his career in time and eternity; quotations from the amiable and penetrating thoughts of St. John Chrysostom and the less amiable and (one ventures to hope) less valuable views of St. Augustine on the moral standing and destinies of infants; curious tales of precocious intelligence; investigations into the real tastes of children in the matter of toys; baptism; martyrdom; these are some of the topics which occupy the variegated pages, where anecdote and verse-quotation continually brighten a road which never strays far from Bethlehem and Calvary. Among the poetic extracts are many which tempt to translation or paraphrase. We offer the following rendering of some wise and earnest lines quoted in the chapter, "De l'éducation des tout-petits": O mother, joying in thine infant's laugh, Crowning with flowers his merry spring of life, How the long-guarded nurseling, whom the storm O mother, mother, let the hour of toil, Of trial, find him not a coward! Speak Of life's great laws that probe the heart within, Of glory fading like a sunlit cloud, Of beauty, wealth, and grandeur, and their shroud, Of the embattled legionaries of sin, Of undeceiving joys, of lamps that guide, Powers that guard, angels that arm God's knight. O strengthen for the foray and the fight The timid steps that totter at thy side! * From Jean Reboul, the "baker-poet" of Nimes, Father * Original by Louise Duponte-Delporte, p. 137. |