icieuse smiled, and ran to embrace all her sisters, hardly knowing
which she loved best.

It was not long before those royal maidens, royal only in their virtues
and their talents, found themselves in a home in a vine-clad land, where
each could live as Nature had designed she should live.

Moina, whose practical skill was not confined to her needle, kept the
house with such exquisite care and neatness, that her sisters preferred
it to a palace. She found happiness in forgetting herself, in her pride
in them, and in the freedom from petty cares from which she shielded
them. Her calm, serene character was a continual repose to the varying
moods of Reima and Novella; a balance-wheel to works that, running fast,
often ran irregularly. Reima studied the old masters with no need for
further travel, for her home lay among their works.

Mosella and Papeta composed music, made Delicieuse listen to and
admire it when other hearers were wanting, and were satisfied with her
criticisms.

Novella wrote books, and had her frenzies. She had her gentle and her
gay moods, also, and made laughter ring through the house at her will.
Not one of these four was conscious of her powers, or asked for fame.
Nor did their aristocratic breeding make them ashamed to work for their
bread. They even fancied that bread thus won, needed less butter to help
it down, than that of charity.

As to Delicieuse, she was the bright, the golden link that bound the
household together in peace and harmony. Her smiles, her caresses, the
love that flowed forth from her as from a living fountain, made their
home glad with perpetual sunshine. Thank God for the gifts of genius He
has scattered abroad with a bountiful hand; but thank Him also that,
without such gifts, one may become a joy and a benediction!

18. _Aunt Jane's Hero_. 1871.

This work was at once republished in England and appeared also in a
French version.

19. _Golden Hours: Hymns and Songs of the Christian Life_. 1873.

Several of the pieces in this volume had already appeared; among them
"More Love to Thee, O Christ." This hymn has passed into most of the
later collections. It was translated into Arabic, and is sung in the
land once trodden by the blessed feet of Him whose name it adores, and
throughout the East.

20. _Urbane and His Friends_. 1874.

This work was reprinted in England.

21. _Griselda: A Dramatic Poem in Five Acts_. Translated from the German
of Friedrich Halm (Baron Mu