arting such melancholy lips. Seen from one side
She is smiling at Jesus, watchful, almost sportive; it would seem as
though she were waiting for the Child to say some merry word before
laughing out; She is a girl-mother, not yet accustomed to her Child's
caress. Seen from another angle, this smile, apparently in the bud, has
vanished. The mouth is puckered in sorrow, and promises tears.

"Perhaps when he succeeded in stamping on the face of Our Lady two such
opposite expressions of peace and of fear, the sculptor intended to
suggest at once the joy of the Nativity and the anticipated anguish of
Calvary. Thus he has portrayed in one and the same image, the Mother of
Sorrows and the Mother of Joy--has, without knowing it, embodied the
prototypes of the Virgin of La Salette and the Virgin of Lourdes.

"And yet all this is inferior to the living and dignified art, so full
of individuality and mystery, that we see in the royal porch of
Chartres!"

"I will not contradict you," said the Abbe Plomb. "Now that we have
studied the series of types placed on St. Anne's left hand, let us
consider the prophetic series on her right.

"First we see Isaiah; the pedestal on which he stands represents Jesse
sleeping. The familiar stem, rooted in him, passes between the prophet's
feet, and the branches of the Virgin's ancestry according to the flesh
and the spirit, as they rise, fill the four courses of moulding in the
central arch. By his side is Jeremiah, who, meditating on the Passion of
Christ, wrote this lamentable passage which is read in the fifth lesson
of the second Nocturn on Easter Eve: 'All ye that pass by, behold and
see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.' Next Simeon holding the
Infant whose Birth he had foreseen, at the same time with the sorrows of
the Virgin and the anguish of Golgotha; Saint John the Baptist, and
finally Saint Peter, whose dress is an interesting study since it is
copied from that of the thirteenth-century Popes.

"With what care is every detail wrought! Admire the treatment of the
sandals, the gloves, the broidered amice, the alb, the maniple, the
dalmatic, the pallium marked with six crosses, the triple crown, the
conical tiara of brocaded silk, the pontifical breastplate, everything
is chiselled, pierced, and patterned as if by a goldsmith."

"Very true. But how superior altogether is the Saint John to his fellows
on this front. What mastery we discern in that hollow, emaciated face,
as