braiding
and adorning her long golden hair, while the angels look on with
devout admiration. (Vienna, Lichtenstein Gal.) In all these examples
Mary is represented as a girl of ten or twelve years old. Now, as the
legend expressly relates that she was three years old when she became
an inmate of the temple, such representations must be considered as
incorrect.

* * * * *

The narrative thus proceeds:--

"And when the child was _three years old_, Joachim said, 'Let us
invite the daughters of Israel, and they shall take each a taper or
a lamp, and attend on her, that the child may not turn back from the
temple of the Lord.' And being come to the temple, they placed her on
the first step, and she ascended alone all the steps to the altar:
and the high priest received her there, kissed her, and blessed her,
saying, 'Mary, the Lord hath magnified thy name to all generations,
and in thee shall be made known the redemption of the children of
Israel.' And being placed before the altar, she danced with her feet,
so that all the house of Israel rejoiced with her, and loved her. Then
her parents returned home, blessing God because the maiden had not
turned back from the temple."

* * * * *

Such is the incident, which, in artistic representation, is sometimes
styled the "Dedication," but more generally "THE PRESENTATION OF THE
VIRGIN."

It is a subject of great importance, not only as a principal incident
in a series of the Life of the Virgin, but because this consecration
of Mary to the service of the temple being taken in a general sense,
it has often been given in a separate form, particularly for the
nunneries. Hence it has happened that we find "The Presentation of the
Virgin" among some of the most precious examples of ancient and modern
art.

The _motif_ does not vary. The child Mary, sometimes in a blue, but
oftener in a white vesture, with long golden hair, ascends the steps
which lead to the porch of the temple, which steps are always fifteen
in number. She ought to be an infant of three years of age; but in
many pictures she is represented older, veiled, and with a taper in
her hand instead of a lamp, like a young nun; but this is a fault. The
"fifteen steps" rest on a passage in Josephus, who says, "between the
wall which separated the men from the women, and the great porch of
the temple, were fifteen steps;" and these are the steps which Mary
is