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after two minutes' conversation with Father Russell in the flesh, all my nervousness vanished. He was "sympathetic " in the best sense of the word, large-minded, full of insight; intensely interested in others, and quite oblivious of the fact that he himself could give far more than he received. As he sat with his bright, intelligent eyes beaming through his glasses, so anxious to hear everything I could tell him, not only about my work, but about myself, my home, my children, I could hardly realise that this was a very busy man with a thousand spiritual interests never neglected, and full of personal literary activity, besides the labour of keeping the gallant little magazine afloat.

"Perhaps the characteristic which struck me most notably on this first occasion was his large and tolerant compassion for the sorrows and failings of others. I think it was on that day that he said to me, in response to some comment of mine on the number of half-drunken and wholly miserable-looking people whom I had encountered in some of the poorer quarters of Dublin :—'What chance have they, the poor creatures, perishing in their garrets, herded together like beasts? You may be sure the Almighty takes count of all that, and makes allowances.'

"He was always ready to make allowances himself his good-humoured 'Well, well,' was soon heard when the conversation threatened to take an uncharitable turn; and he could nearly always find an excuse for any delinquent, particularly if he or she hailed from Ireland. The long rows of crouching penitents who knelt cutside his Confessional on Box Days' testified to the confidence with which sinners turned to him.

"It was shortly after this first interview with Father Russell that he wrote to me telling me he lacked a serial for the Irish Monthly, and asking if I would care to undertake to write one for the coming year. It was then late in the autumn. I had nothing ready, having never hitherto undertaken a work of what appeared to me such magnitude. However, he was good enough to say that if I could manage to keep a number or two ahead, in case of accidents, he would trust me to produce a story which should be acceptable to his readers."

To accept as a serial for the magazine a young writer's first novel before it was written, or even planned out, as Father Russell did on this occasion, was to take a risk which not many editors would take. But Father Russell had a sure literary

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judgment, and in her short stories that he had printed he discerned the power to do greater things. How well placed his confidence was, readers of Molly's Fortunes will see for themselves.

There follows a charming account of how the story was actually written, amid the distractions of family life, for Mrs. Blundell was already in those early days mother and widow, in an "extremely gregarious family that liked to carry out all its occupations in common." At last came the discovery of a safe retreat, a pile of feather beds in the lumber-room, heaped in front of a sunny window.

"So here the main portion of the book was written-in pencil out of regard for the feather beds-with fingers that were blue with cold and adorned with a variety of chilblains, but with a delightful sense of freedom and consequent inspiration.

"The book was finished at Delgany in the following summer, which I spent with great satisfaction in that favoured corner of Wicklow. It was a particularly warm season, and my surroundings in that lovely spot were glowing with life and colour, yet I remember turning as cold with excitement as I penned the concluding chapter as I had done in the beginning, in the fireless lumber-room.

"To me, Molly and her rather fanciful love-tale were intensely real. Though I, myself, was mother and widow when I penned her history, I had not left my own girlhood very far behind me ; and it is the memory of this fact which makes me hope that now, when the little book goes out into the world for the first time in its complete form, the girl readers for whom it is chiefly intended will have a friendly thought for the author.

"And I would ask for a thought of another kind for the large-hearted and genial Editor, dear 'Father Matt,' who was the first to stretch out a guiding hand to her, as to many another aspirant to literary fame."

Mrs. Blundell here speaks of the story in a rather apologetic fashion, which we can understand when we consider the brilliant success of many of her later novels; but it is a bright, cheerful, and well-written story that well deserved reprinting in book form; and it will interest not merely the girl readers referred to but a much wider circle of readers besides.*

* Molly's Fortunes. By M. E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell). London; Sands & Co. (Price 3s. 6d. net

DIEM PERDIDI

MORNING.

How shall I serve Thee, O Lord?
I am young, I am strong!
Shall I handle the spear and the sword,
Or praise Thee in music and word?

Let my life-day be short or be long,
It shall see me at falling of even,
Serene in beatitude given

To them whose delight and whose aim
Is to hallow Thy name.

NOON.

Dreadful the heat of the sun,

And the press of the crowd!

Combat and noise will I shun,

By the rivers that quietly run,

Where the shimmering willows are bowed.
There will I rest and drink deep

Of the gifts that He giveth in sleep;
And leave to the strivers the prize
Worth nought in mine eyes.

NIGHT.

Cold are the dews dropping now,
And cold is thy heart.

No wreath is engirding thy brow,
And broken thy sword and thy vow;

And our tears in their bitterness start.
And what wilt thou say to thy God
Of the way that thy footsteps have trod?
And what to His men, to whose hurt
Apostate thou wert?

EMILY HICKEY.

LEAVES FROM A BENEDICTINE GARDEN

By MARION CAHILL

I

N the middle is the Cross of St. Benedict, and the wedge

IN

shaped beds are planted with roses. At the four corners are

green archways leading down grassy paths to the outer walk, bounded by high red walls with their covering of old fruit trees. Here the birds sing all day long in May and June. They have been silent except for the cheery whistle of the robin, for many months, but February is here and the singing birds are arriving.

There is promise in the air-the unexpected. The golden hope of the springtime is abroad, it whispers of wonders unknown. To-day may be dark; but to-morrow-who knows? Who knows all the promise of the great to-morrow? God did well when He kept back the knowledge of to-morrow from to-day. How many glorious deeds may be performed-to-morrow; wonderful thoughts thought-to-morrow; music breathed-to-morrow!

To-morrow is Ash Wednesday! and we are early in the church to begin the penitential season of Lent in good earnest by having the ashes sprinkled on our foreheads. Violet is the Lenten colour. It is seen in the vestments appointed to be used by the ritual of the Church. The violets should be out in the garden; but they are late, or, rather, Lent is early. The exquisite shaft of the crocus has shot up-straight and honest and fearless, shading in delicate purple and gold, long lines of them, a brave company, to face the frost and perhaps the snow.

The ground is being broken up ready for sowing the early vegetables. The gardeners are busy after the long frost.

The Lime-walk is deserted, except at sunset. For then across the path and stretching away to the woods in the west, appears the setting sun in a fiery back-ground, barred by the tall pine-trees. In the Lime-walk the community walk at recreation; hurriedly in winter to reach the shelter of the plantation, and slowly in the summer, for then it is the coolest spot in the garden.

The trees in the Lime-walk are of the same number as the original community who founded this English house, and that many years ago. For now there are traditions," ancient

forms and customs to observe, quaint usages dating back to centuries of by-gone glory when kings and queens walked among the trees of the original foundation-a royal abbey of France; days when Louis XIV. and Madame de Maintenon, Fénélon the great and noble bishop, and all the wits and beauties of the finest court the world has ever seen, strolled on feast days after the Mass in the green gardens of the convent; days when the Great Condé paid his deferential visits, and his sister, the famous beauty-the Duchesse de Longueville-came to rest from the fatigues of an exacting court.

And we are heirs to this, we keep our traditions sacred. We can say: "In the church there, Eugenius III. said Mass, assisted by St. Bernard"; "In the gardens walked Henri Quatre, a frequent visitor"; "There, St. Francis de Sales visited and advised the young and saintly abbess, Madame de Beauvilliers."

Tell me, where in the world are children brought up in such an atmosphere, where everything breathes of beauty and peace with God, and only the best traditions of men remain? This is the home of piety and culture.

II

To-morrow is the Feast of St. Scholastica, the sister of St. Benedict. The bells are ringing in the feast now at sundown. They peal and rock in the tower, and the sounds swell over the hills and through the little hamlets and fall on the alien ears of those who are strangers to the faith. They come to their doors in the sweet evening air. "The Priory bells are ringing "-cyclists and tourists reaching the top of the hill, leading to the valley, stand and listen surprised, for the tower has been hidden in the trees till now, and eyes and ears are ravished with the beauty of God's home in the wilderness, where all are welcome who come, and from whence goes out a message of peace to all who have ears to hear. Blessed bells of St. Benedict! I know not when you sound sweetest: whether it is over the blushing cornfield in the grateful harvest-time; or in the winter, when the brook is hard-bound by the frost; or in spring, when the earth is full of promise and the first green has beautified the earth. And I know not which of the bells ring the sweetest: the great St. Benedict, majestically chanting "In omnibus glorificetur Deus" SS. Peter and Paul, "In omnes terram exivit sonus earum"; or the clear tenor note of the "Regina Angelorum," ringing out

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