or too drowsy to know whether they turned the keys aright, had left one of the doors unlocked. By that accident the footfalls Patrasche sought had passed through into the building, leaving the white marks of the snow upon the dark stone floor.

By that slender white thread, frozen as it fell, he was guided through the intense silence, through the immensity of the vaulted space-guided straight to the gates of the chancel-and stretched there upon the stones, he found Nello. He crept up noiselessly and touched the face of the boy.

"Didst thou dream that I should be faithless and forsake thee? I-a dog?" said that mute caress.

The lad raised himself with a low cry and clasped him close.

"Let us lie down and die together," he murmured. "Men have no need of us, and we are all alone."

In answer Patrasche crept closer yet and laid his head upon the young man's breast. The tears stood in his great, brown, sad eyes. Not for himself; for himself he was happy.

Suddenly through the darkness a great white radiance streamed through the vastness of the aisles. The moon, that was at her height, had broken through the clouds. The snow had ceased to fall. The light reflected from the snow without was clear as the light of dawn. It fell through the arches full upon the two pictures above, from which the boy, on his entrance, had flung back the veil. "The Elevation" and "The Descent from the Cross" for one instant were visible as by day.

Nello rose to his feet and stretched his arms to them. The tears of a passionate ecstasy glistened on the paleness of his face.

"I have seen them at last!" he cried aloud. "Oh God, it is enough!"

When the Christmas morning broke and the priests came to the temple they saw them lying on the stones together. Above, the veils were drawn back from the great visions of Rubens, and the fresh rays of the sunrise touched the thorn-crowned head of God.

As the day grew on there came an old, hardfeatured man who wept as women weep.

"I was cruel to the lad," he murmured, “and now I would have made amends-yea, to the half of my substance-and he should have been to me as a son."

There came also as the day grew apace a painter who had fame in the world and who was liberal of hand and of spirit.

"I seek one who should have had the prize yesterday had worth won," he said to the people, "a boy of rare promise and genius. An old woodcutter on a fallen tree at eventide, that was all his theme. I would find him and take him with me and teach him art."

And a little child with curling fair hair, sobbing bitterly as she clung to her father's arm, cried aloud: "O Nello, come! We have all ready for thee. The Christ child's hands are full of gifts, and the old piper will play for us; and the mother says thou shalt stay by the hearth and burn nuts with us all the Noel week long-yes even to the feast of the kings! And Patrasche will be happy! O Nello, wake and come!"

But the young, pale face, turned upward to the great Rubens with a smile upon its mouth, answered them all. "It is too late."

For the sweet sonorous bells went ringing through the frost, and the sunlight shone upon the plains of snow, and the populace trooped gay and glad through the streets, but Nello and Patrasche no more asked charity at their hands. All they needed now Antwerp gave unbidden.

When they were found the arms of the boy were folded so closely around the dog that it was difficult to draw them away. The people of the little village, contrite and ashamed, took the little boy tenderly in their arms and bore him away to his last resting place. Patrasche was not forgotten, for all the villagers felt the strength of his devotion.

Of all the characters in this story, which is the most important and the most interesting? The author has showed us which she considers the most important by the title she has given to the tale— A Dog of Flanders. Let us see just what she has told us about Patrasche, that we may know whether he is worthy of being the hero of a story.

First, as to his appearance, we are given the following facts:

1. Yellow of hide.

2. Large of limb.

3. Wolflike ears.

4. Legs bowed and feet widened.

5. Large, wistful, sympathetic eyes.

6. Great, tawny head.

7. (Later) Drooping and feeble; gaunt.

The picture which the author paints for us of Patrasche's appearance is not beautiful; we do not love him just for his looks. As to his character and

abilities, we are told, or are enabled to find out from his actions, the following things:

1. Strong and industrious. He used to draw the heavy cart of the hardware dealer.

2. Grateful. He loved those who had saved his life, and worked for them willingly.

3. Careful of his young master. He was troubled when Nello went into the dim churches.

4. Wise. He felt that it was good for Nello to be as much as possible in the sunny fields or among happy people.

5. Sympathetic. He looked at Nello with wistful, sympathetic eyes.

6. Understanding. He realized that the picture that Nello was drawing was something which meant much to him.

7. Loving. He grieved passionately with Nello at the old man's death.

8. Acute of sense. He discovered the pocket book in the snow.

9. Faithful. He refused to stay in the miller's warm kitchen while Nello was out in the cold.

10. Persistent and patient. He never gave up the search, difficult though it was, until he had found his master.

11. Unselfish. He was happy for himself, but he wept because his master was unhappy.

Do you think a dog could have all these qualities, or do you think the author, in her anxiety to have us like the dog, has given him characteristics which he could not really possess? Have you not, yourself, known dogs that were as intelligent, as affectionate and as faithful as Patrasche?

ALICE AND PHOEBE CARY

By ANNA MCCALEB

N the writings of Alice and Phoebe Cary are to be found many references which show how fondly they remembered the little brown house in which they were born. This house was on a farm in the Miami Valley in Ohio, eight miles north of Cincinnati. Alice was born April 26th, 1820, and Phoebe, September 24th, 1824, and there was one brother between them. Robert Cary, the father, was a kindly, gentle man, fond of reading, especially romances and poetry. The education for which he had so much longed he had been unable to obtain, and this made him quiet and diffident with strangers, although in his own family he was most loving and most companionable. Even the animals on the farm loved him, and the horses and cattle would follow him about watching for the kindly word and pat, or for the lump of salt or sugar which he was so certain to have for them. This Robert Cary was a descendant of Sir Robert Cary, a famous English knight of the time of Henry V, and Phoebe was always very proud of this ancestry of hers-so proud, in fact, that she had the Cary arms engraved on a seal ring.

It would seem that the enthusiastic admiration which the daughters all their life had for their mother was nothing beyond her deserts, for she seems to