*

Many years have passed since then, and many showers of rain have
helped to lay the mound flat with the earth, so that the "hen and
chickens" have run all over it, and made a fine plot. The curate and
his mother have met at last; and I have transplanted many flowers that
he gave me to his grave. I sometimes wonder if, in his perfect
happiness, he knows, or cares to know, how often the remembrance of
his story has stopped the current of conceited day-dreams, and brought
me back to practical duty with the humble prayer, "Keep Thy servant
also from presumptuous sins."

FRIEDRICH'S BALLAD.

A TALE OF THE FEAST OF ST. NICHOLAS.

"Ne pinger ne scolpir fia piu che queti,
L'anima volta a quell' Amor divino
Ch'asserse a prender noi in Croce le braccia."

"Painting and Sculpture's aid in vain I crave,
My one sole refuge is that Love divine
Which from the Cross stretched forth its arms to save."

_Written by_ MICHAEL ANGELO _at the age of 83._

"So be it," said one of the council, as he rose and addressed the
others. "It is now finally decided. The Story Woman is to be walled
up."

The council was not an ecclesiastical one, and the woman condemned to
the barbarous and bygone punishment of being "walled up" was not an
offending nun. In fact the Story Woman (or _Maerchen-Frau_ as she is
called in Germany) may be taken to represent the imaginary personage
who is known in England by the name of Mother Bunch, or Mother Goose;
and it was in this instance the name given by a certain family of
children to an old book of ballads and poems, which they were
accustomed to read in turn with special solemnities, on one particular
night in the year; the reader for the time being having a peculiar
costume, and the title of "Maerchen-Frau," or Mother Bunch, a name
which had in time been familiarly adopted for the ballad-book itself.

This book was not bound in a fashionable colour, nor illustrated by a
fashionable artist; the Chiswick Press had not set up a type for it,
and Hayday's morocco was a thing unknown. It had not, in short, one of
those attractions with which in these days books are surrounded, whose
insides do not always fulfil the promise of the binding. If, however,
it was on these points inferior to modern volumes, it had on others
the advantage. It did not share a precarious favour with a dozen
rivals in mauve, to be supplanted ere the year was out by twelve new
ones in magenta. It