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THE SPINNER _Jean Francois Millet_ _Frontispiece_

INNOCENCE _Jean Baptiste Greuze_ 10

MIGNON _Paul Kiessling_ 18

SIEGFRIED _F. Leeke_ 28

"AT THE FARTHEST END
OF THE MEADOW" _Yeend King_ 40

LISEUSE _Jules Le Febvre_ 46

THE BEATA BEATRICE _Dante Gabriel Rossetti_ 56

ASPIRATION _George Frederick Watts_ 62

THE ANGELUS _Jean Francois Millet_ 68

THE HOLY NIGHT _Antonio Allegri da Correggio_ 80

THE DIVINE SHEPHERD _Bartolome Esteban Murillo_ 96

[Illustration: _By Jean Baptiste Greuze_

INNOCENCE]

A SONG.

The year's at the spring
The day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in his heaven--
All's right with the world!

--_From Browning's "Pippa Passes."_

PIPPA.

All the year in the little village of Asola the great wheels of the
mills went round and round. It seemed to the very little children that
they never, never stopped, but went on turning and singing, turning and
singing. No matter where you went in the village, the hum of the wheels
could always be heard; and though no one could really say what the
wheels sang, everyone turned gladly to his work or went swiftly on his
errand when he heard the busy song.

Everyone was proud of the mills in Asola, and the children most of all.
The very little ones would go to the lowest windows and look into the
great dim room where the wheels were, and they wondered, as they looked,
if ever they would grow wise enough to help make silk.

Those children who were older wound thread on the bobbins, or helped at
the looms. And whenever they saw the bright stuff in shop windows, or a
beautiful woman passed in silken robes, they looked with shining eyes.
"See how beautiful!" they would say. "We helped. She needs us; the world
needs us!" and their hearts were so full of gladness at the thought.

The poet tells us there was a child there whose name was Pippa, and she
worked all day in this mill, winding silk on the little whirling,