s with delight as he unfolded the jewelled embroideries,
and smoothed out the fine linen of the under vestments; and his voice,
too, seemed to gain a sharp tenderness and emotive force, as he told how
these were the gold vestments worn by the bishop, and only on certain
great feast-days, and that these were the white vestments worn on days
especially commemorative of the Virgin. The consideration of the
censers, candlesticks, chalices, and albs took some time, and John was a
little aggressive in his explanation of Catholic ceremonial, and its
grace and comeliness compared with the stiffness and materialism of the
Protestant service.

From the sacristy they went to the boys' library. John pointed out the
excellent supply of light literature that the bookcases contained.

"We take travels, history, fairy-tales--romances of all kinds, so long
as sensual passion is not touched upon at any length. Of course we
don't object to a book in which just towards the end the young man falls
in love and proposes; but there must not be much of that sort of thing.
Here are Robert Louis Stevenson's works, 'Treasure Island,' 'Kidnapped,'
&c., charming writer--a neat pretty style, with a pleasant souvenir of
Edgar Poe running through it all. You have no idea how the boys enjoy
his books."

"And don't you?"

"Oh no; I have just glanced at him: for my own reading, I can admit none
who does not write in the first instance for scholars, and then to the
scholarly instincts in readers generally. Here is Walter Pater. We have
his Renaissance; studies in art and poetry--I gave it myself to the
library. We were so sorry we could not include that most beautiful book,
'Marius the Epicurean.' We have some young men here of twenty and three
and twenty, and it would be delightful to see them reading it, so
exquisite is its hopeful idealism; but we were obliged to bar it on
account of the story of Psyche, sweetly though it be told, and sweetly
though it be removed from any taint of realistic suggestion. Do you know
the book?"

"I can't say I do."

"Then read it at once. It is a breath of delicious fragrance blown back
to us from the antique world; nothing is lost or faded, the bloom of
that glad bright world is upon every page; the wide temples, the lustral
water--the youths apportioned out for divine service, and already happy
with a sense of dedication, the altars gay with garlands of wool and the
more sumptuous sort of flowers, the colour of th