and between the
cottages there were gardens where seed had sprung up in rows.

In some of the houses people were going about their homely tasks, and
they were singing softly, or saying the most gentle words to one another
as they worked. And before a very humble door, where only one tall lily
bloomed, there sat a beautiful mother with a baby on her knee and a
little one beside her; and they were looking straight into her eyes,
listening to the wonderful story of the Easter morning. The father
stopped to listen too, and in every single face shone the same holy
light.

It shone even in the face of the Faust as he passed.

And behold, when Margaret looked at him he had grown young. His hair
glinted in the sun and the wonder had come back to his eyes. Butterflies
circled above them, and they went on and on, free and glad together, and
the holy light was over everything.

But the poet tells us that afterwards Faust traveled into a very
strange, far world, where there was never any silence or living flowers.
Nothing was perfect or holy there, and Margaret could not go. But they
tell us that whenever he looked away from this strange world, he heard
again the singing, and smelled the faint fragrance of lilies, and it
seemed to him that he was there again in the light, with the blessed
Margaret leading him on forever.

Oh, eternal light!
For I therein, methought, in its own hue,
Beheld our image painted.

--_From Dante's "Paradise."_

[Illustration:

_By Dante Gabriel Rossetti_

THE BEATA BEATRICE]

BEATRICE.

Dear children, there is a great story of Heaven told by a poet called
Dante, who dreamed that he was led through Heaven by the beautiful
Beatrice.

And this is how it was. Dante had come to think so many unloving
thoughts of all the people, that whenever he went about the streets of
Florence where he lived, he thought he saw evil marks on all the faces.
And it seemed to him that everyone in the world was lost from God. And
the angry sorrow in his heart grew so great that there was not a single
loving, hopeful thought in it. Then there came to him a wonderful
vision. It seemed to him that Beatrice, whom he loved, came down from
God and spoke to him and led him up, and showed him Heaven.

But his eyes were so dim at first, it seemed only the shining of a few
small stars. But as they journeyed, Beatrice spoke to him of many things
he had not understood, and while she talk