It was now the month of May. "The flowers had appeared in our land." Was it like our May in Palestine when his song burst from the lips of Solomon? Surely we have no lovelier month, and this was an ideal one. For once the newspaper bards were obliged to refrain from their usual tirades against "the May of the poets." We all know how they rage if there are a few rainy days, or if winter, leaning back for a last look, lets his cold mantle droop from his shoulders, and cast a chilling shadow over the land.

One evening after a hot day, unusually hot for spring, Lillie on her return home from the office felt the house stifling. Charley had gone to the country for a week on business for his employer; so she was quite free to do as she pleased, and accordingly she set out to take a walk. She was passing one of the churches when she met a group of tiny girls, all dressed in white, who were evidently hastening to take part in one of the May processions. She turned to look after them, and, prompted by a sudden thought, retraced her steps, and followed them. The children ran round to the sacristy to be ranged in order with their companions, and Lillie entered the church. It was almost empty as it was yet too early for the devotions. How peaceful it was! The rush and roar of the city was softened to a faint murmur like the sound of distant waters. Shadows were gathering in the dim recesses, but the western windows were still aglow with the radiance of the sunset and flung patches of gorgeous colour here and there on the old grey pillars.

One long beam of golden light fell on the picture representing the third fall of Christ under the cross that He had dragged through the streets of the capital city of His nation, amid the crowds who had come from all parts of Judea to celebrate the Jewish festival.

The young girl's gaze followed the sunbeam and rested on that pathetic figure so awful in its loneliness and desolation; abandoned by all it seemed, save enemies, and the soldiers of Rome. With softened heart and moistened eyes Lillie looked until the light had faded and all was grey.

Now the people began to come in and the church was soon filled. The Rosary was said, after which there was a short sermon on tepidity and venial sin. The preacher reminded his hearers of that appalling denunciation pronounced by God in the Apocalypse against those who allow themselves to lapse into a state of lukewarmness. The sermon was listened to with the deepest attention by the congregation. But there were other listeners too; a silent, unseen band, and among them

was Lillie's guardian angel watching over, and praying for, his erring charge.

Then came the procession. A host of children in snowy raiment, carrying tiny banners, and singing the praises of the Virgin Mother, walked round the church. As Faber's beautiful hymn, "Sweet Star of the Sea," fell from the childish lips, a crowd of memories came to Lillie. The May evenings long ago, Our Lady's altar fragrant with wild flowers, primroses and the sweet wild hyacinths, the lovely spoils of the woodland, the procession round the convent garden and she, Lillie Gray, a tiny child, running to darling Sister Paula, to beg her to adjust the veil which would keep falling off her curly hair.

At length her wandering thoughts were recalled to the present, for now the hymn ceased, the children knelt round the altar, and there was a pause until the priest had placed the King on His golden throne, high up among the twinkling lights and the glowing flowers. Then came the O Salutaris with its beautiful ending :

Qui vitam sine termino

Nobis donet in patria.

Well did Lillie know the meaning of those words in which we pray for endless life in our fatherland. And now she prayed with all her heart that she too might share in that life unending, in our true country, our real home, heaven. When the blessing was given and the second Adoremus in aeternum sung, she still knelt on. The altar tapers were extinguished, and presently the church was dark except for the glimmer of the sanctuary lamp and the lights opposite the confessionals. These latter were rapidly becoming crowded. After a little while the girl rose from her knees, crossed the nave with resolute step, and took her place at the end of one of the rows of penitents. The time of waiting, long as it necessarily was, proved all too short for her preparation. At length her turn came; and it was a very happy Lillie who again knelt in the dim light before the tabernacle. Tears of sorrow, that were also, strangely, tears of joy, fell from her eyes.

Such were the tears that Peter shed,

Than Hybla's dews more sweet.

Such were the tears that Mary wept
Upon her Saviour's feet.

Then home through the darkening streets to prepare for the morning. She rose early and was in good time for Mass. With wonderful fervour she received Holy Communion, and made her thanksgiving to Him who had so lovingly followed after

and brought her back, to place her once more safely in the fold with the ninety-nine-the lost sheep who had strayed from Him a little way, and might have strayed still further, and been lost amid the thorns and briars of the world.

VI.

The next Sunday, Charles Forrester called to take Lillie for a walk, and in reply to his usual question as to where they should go, she said:

"I am going to Vespers."

"I am going to Vespers." Charley mimicked her tone and said: "Dear me, what an emphatic I! And pray, may I

not accompany your ladyship?

"Will you come, Charley?"

"Of course I'll come."

Off they went, and deeply the young girl regretted that she had never before proposed going to church on Sunday evenings, instead of strolling aimlessly about.

And now a very important time was coming. Charley's salary, a fairly good one, had been lately increased; and he thought he should like to have a home of his own. He consulted

Lillie, and the result was that the young people decided to start house-keeping forthwith. They were married in May, Lillie very wisely ignoring the absurd superstition which pretends to foretell ill-luck to those who are rash enough to wed in that month. Part of the honeymoon was spent in the bride's native village. Charley was taken to visit the convent, and was introduced to Sister Paula who soon found an opportunity to give his wife her opinion of him, which, judging by the smiles with which it was received, must have been very favourable.

Some time after the young people returned to Dublin, to take up the serious business of life. Charley on his way to the office one morning, met Mr. Leslie whom he had not lately seen. The young man stopped to enquire for Mrs. Forrester, and Charley grew eloquent as he praised Lillie's house-keeping, and confided to his old friend the fact that one pound in her hands went quite as far as two in his own in his bachelor days. Then he said with a smile, "She is the best little wife in the world. Come and dine with us next Sunday."

M. C.

This notion dates from the old pagan times, and is alluded to by Ovid, who was born forty-three years before the Christian era.

ΤΗ

OTHER PEOPLE'S LANTERNS

HE title of this paper has been suggested by Robert Louis Stevenson's delightful essay, "The Lantern Bearers." I shall, I feel certain, be pardoned, if I quote the passage at some length.

"Toward the end of September, when school time was drawing near, and the nights were already black, we would begin to sally from our respective villas, each equipped with a tiny bull's-eye lantern. The thing was so well known that it had worn a rut in the commerce of Great Britain; and the grocers, about the due time, began to garnish their windows with our particular brand of luminary. We wore them buckled to the waist upon a cricket belt, and over them, such was the rigour of the game, a buttoned top-coat. They smelled noisomely of blistered tin. They never burned aright, though they would always burn our fingers. Their use was nought, the pleasure of them merely fanciful, and yet a boy with a bull'seye under his top-coat asked for nothing more. . . When two of these asses met, there would be an anxious, Have you got your lantern?' and a gratified' Yes!' That was the shibboleth, and very needful, too, for, as it was the rule to keep our glory concealed, none could recognize a lantern-bearer unless (like the polecat) by the smell. . . . Then four or five would climb into an old lugger, the coats would be unbuttoned, the bull's-eyes discovered; and, in the chequering glimmer, cheered by a rich steam of toasting tin-ware, these fortunate young gentlemen would crouch together, and delight them with inappropriate talk."

"Woe is me," says Stevenson, "that I cannot give some specimens ! . . . But the talk was but a condiment, and these gatherings themselves only accidents in the career of the lanternbearer. The essence of this bliss was to walk by yourself in the black night, the slide shut, the top-coat buttoned, not a ray escaping, whether to conduct your footsteps or to make your glory public,-a mere pillar of darkness in the dark; and all the while, deep down in the privacy of your fool's heart, to know you had a bull's-eye at your belt, and to exult and sing over the knowledge."

And then Stevenson goes on to say: A man's life from without may seem but a rude mound of mud: there will be some golden chamber at the heart of it, in which he dwells

delighted; and for as dark as his pathway seems to the observer, he will have some kind of bull's-eye at his belt."

So much for Stevenson. Now, this lantern which each man has at his belt, being hidden from us by his great cloak of ordinary commonplace living, we miss the joy of his life, we fail to understand him, and the whole poetry of his existence is lost to us.

We jostle and bustle about this busy old world of ours, and, as the crowds come and go, and our eyes light upon the foreheads of men and women, of youths and maidens, foreheads of every size and shape, aye, and of assorted textures and hues, we little suspect what burning thoughts, what generous aims, what noble aspirations vibrate beneath those prison-walls. All these people, I know not why, have their lanterns hidden beneath their great coats, and we, whose eyes cannot, forsooth, see through a thick frieze, pronounce them lanternless. We call their lives dull, stupid, commonplace, or, as the academic would have it, "unpoetic."

Now, there was once a man who, on complaining that he could see nothing grand in the poetry of Milton, received the answer that the fault lay, not with Milton, but with himself; and so it is with us. If we can see nothing noble in the countless lives around us, the fault lies, not with them, but with ourselves. We are only finite, and our small minds have to attend, for the most part, to our own special vocation, if we wish to succeed in it. It is only poets and philosophers and great dreamers who can feel this inner joy and significance of the lives of others. But we cannot be all poets or philosophers or great dreamers, this being the privilege of the few. What we can do, however, is to listen to what poets have enshrined in immortal verse, and to try and feel, with their guidance, what we cannot ordinarily feel by ourselves. I say ordinarily, for there are moments in the lives of the most earthy of us, when the soul, pierced through with intense emotion, seems to be suddenly enlightened; the scales fall from our eyes and the whole inner meaning of life flashes upon us

This "sudden gleam divine," as Walt Whitman calls it, will visit different people at very dissimilar times. To poets it comes on the most ordinary occasions; to a Wordsworth at the sight of even the "meanest flower that blows; " to a Shelley, on hearing the strains of a skylark; to a Byron, on contemplating the great ocean; to a Whitman, on crossing the crowded ferry. But to people other than poets this divine gleam comes on what we might call extra-ordinary occasions. To the