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WINGED WORDS.

1. The heart's blood must gem with red beads the brow of the combatant before the wreath of victory rustles over it.-Charlotte Bronte.

2. God bestows on us good things, day by day, hour by hour, as a bird feeding its fledglings.-The same.

3. One of the benefits we derive from travelling is an emancipation from the bondage of comforts.-Aubrey de Vere.

4. Half the failures in life arise from pulling in one's horse while he is leaping.-Archdeacon Hare.

5. Men, the very best of men, can only suffer, while women can endure.-" John Halifax."

6. The first bud from the tree of knowledge is the knowledge of ignorance. Socrates.

7. I sometimes think there's two sides to the commandment, and that we may say "Let others do unto you as you would do unto them." for pride often prevents our giving others a great deal of pleasure in not letting them be kind, when their hearts are longing to help, and when we ourselves should wish to do just the same if we were in their place. Oh! how often I've been hurt by being coldly told by persons not to trouble myself about their care or sorrow when I saw them in great grief and wanted to be of comfort. Our Lord Jesus was not above letting folk minister to Him, for He knew how happy it makes one to do anything for another. It's the happiest work on earth.— Mrs. Gaskell.

8. Under every guilty secret there is hidden a brood of guilty wishes, whose unwholesome infecting life is cherished by the darkness. The contaminating effect of deeds often lies less in the commission than in the consequent adjustment of our desires-the enlistment of our self-interest on the side of falsity; as on the other hand the purifying influence of public confession springs from the fact that by it the hope in lies is for ever swept away, and the soul recovers the noble attitude of simplicity.-"Romola."

9. The Arabs discern the approach of the simoom by a smell of sulphur. Certain seasons of strong temptation announce themselves thus. In the simoom of passion save yourself from suffocation by sinking low down in humility and self-abasement: as the camels save themselves from being stifled by burying their nostrils in the sand.— E. G. O.

10 When we think of the return God makes for little things we do for Him, is it not like "realising the dreams of alchemy, and transmuting lead into gold ?"-The same.

11. If I had the management of the moral and physical atmospheres, there would be less rain and fewer tears. But probably heaven would be less populous in that contingency, and the wheat crop less abundant.-The same.

NOTES IN THE BIG HOUSE.

THESE present Notes are a mere imposture, and this present Writer is a mere intruder. The fact is, that it was resolved in solemn conclave to have no Notes at all this month, seeing that half a score of our earlier pages are devoted to Saint Joseph's Big House and Mary's Little Children. But lo! on St. Patrick's Eve, just as I was looking over the last page of the last proof-sheet, correcting bird into bud, and slipping a note of interrogation in after gold, there comes to me from a holy and beautiful convent in the heart of Ireland-itself consecrated in more than name to that Heart to which Ireland is specially consecrated a nice little note containing a nice little offering to St. Joseph's exchequer. Now, as the same kind little benefactress made me her medium once before, and as her precious largess, though duly delivered, seems not to have been duly recorded, I am tempted to guard against a similar oversight, and to answer Annie's letter here. Shall we read it out before answering it? As an indication of my correspondent's youthfulness and inexperience-the first of her teens is still many years ahead-I may venture to mention in strict confidence that she at first signed herself my "respectable child." Her letter was written quite of her own accord, and has received no finishing touches. She can say with Edmund Burke, changing one word: "My errors, if any, are my own-I am no nun's proxy."

"Dear Father (she says), I am sending you five shillings for the little children in the Big House. I hope none of them have colds. I shall ask papa to let me go see them when we get vacation. I would like very much to know all their names. I would like to take care of them in it. [The noun that "it" stands for is four sentences away-that is rather too far, Annie, for such a poor little pronoun to jump back.] We had a grand banner match the other day. We did not finish it yet. How many children are there in the Big House? I will pray for them every day at Mass that they may get better. I will now conclude, hoping to send you more money at Easter. I remain your respectful child,

"ANNIE M. D."

The initials added to Annie's name do not signify that she is a medical doctor. "M" stands, of course, for the Blessed Virgin's name; but of the surname I will only say that it rhymes with the English of pluviose, and approaches very near to the name of the editor of the Times.

I am greatly afraid, Annie, that you do not observe that restriction which even M. l'Aumônier imposes on the zeal of his hearers in the Address which you will find about page 256 of this Number. He allows them to go on helping the poor sick children, provided they don't give all they have in the world. Now, Annie, you seem to be bent on giving all you have in the world; for it is not long since you gave a good deal more than you are giving now. Well, it will be right well invested. God's bank will never break. A French poet is astonished at the generosity of God in giving in return pour l'hos

pitalité d'un cœur celle des cieux (have you begun the French Grammar yet?); but what is that to the disparity between half-a-crown (or two of them) and a crown of glory?

As for the questions Annie puts about the names and number of the young patients, I am not able to answer them, for, as at the outset I gave warning, these "Notes in the Big House" are an arrant imposture and not written there at all. Lest I should be beset with queries on the subject, I plead guilty to the same abject ignorance touching another matter mentioned in this letter-that "grand banner match," what does it mean, and how shall it end? It cannot end in so unladylike a fashion as a grand football match, of which a sturdy little Celt beyond the Channel, petitioning me for a cargo of shamrocks, chronicled the result in these energetic terms: "I was on the English side, but the French licked us to smithereens." Cyril, by the way, takes a great interest also in our poor sick little children; but half-crowns find it harder to make their way out of little boy's pockets. "I wish they found their way into mine a good deal oftener," Cyril rejoins.

66

Saint Joseph at first intended to give this Pupil of the Sacred Heart, as a token of his gratitude, a very pretty new book, called Simple Tales," some of which are as tender and graceful as our "Little Willie" (IRISH MONTHLY, March, 1875). But on second thoughts he bade me send her a large photograph of that same Willie, taken not long before his holy and happy death. It will reach Annie on the eve of our Patron's Feast. May his Feast, which is (only separated from our own St. Patrick's by the great Archangel of the Annunciation, bring graces and blessings galore to her; and to all friends, old and young, of the poor and sick and maimed little children of St. Joseph.

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BY THE AUTHOR OF "NELLIE NETTERVILLE," "MADAME DE SAISSEVAL," &c.

THE

HE fairest part of Brittany, perhaps, is that which in modern geography we call "Les Côtes-du-Nord," but which its own inhabitants, faithful as ever to their old traditions, still know by its ancient and time-honoured designation as the "Pays de Treguier."

The skies are less gloomy, the aspect of the country softer, the people less severely grave, than in most of the districts of the neighbouring country of Cornuaille; and the traditional melancholy which haunts the very air of Brittany seems to lose somewhat of its characteristic moroseness, and to become tender and serene, as it floats upon the soft sea breeze over the fields of Treguier, listening, one could almost fancy, to the calls of the shepherd from the distant pastures, or to the voice of the lark as it rises on quivering wings and pours forth its song at the gates of heaven.

The coast line of Treguier is chiefly formed of immense rocks of rose-coloured granite, which, cut by time and tempest into a thousand fantastic shapes and figures, now rush precipitately into the ocean, as if to do battle with the waves, and now recede from it, as though stricken by a sudden panic, thus forming, one with the other, a succession of quiet bays, where villages, their houses painted red, and their church with slate-coloured, shining steeple, lie safely nestled

from the storms outside.

Very fair and fertile is the land which reveals itself behind the sea wall we have endeavoured to describe. Immense fields, purple with the bloom of the potato, or else transformed into veritable ribbon gardens by the bands of wheat, of clover (white and red), and of yellow rape which stripe them, everywhere meet the eye; while here and there a rude rock, crowned with golden flowering furze, crops up suddenly in the midst of this careful cultivation, and gives a touch of wildness to its beauty.

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The valleys of Treguier are especially charming. They run from the ocean far and wide into the country; chance glimpses of the broken cliffs and the deep blue sea beyond, giving a sense of freshness and freedom to a solitude which might otherwise have seemed oppressive. Their sloping uplands, dotted with trees and clumps of wild wood, are rich in green pastures for the cattle; while down in their deepest hollows innumerable little villages, or rather clusters of low cottages, are hidden so carefully behind tall hedges of hawthorn and dogrose and flaunting honeysuckle, that their roofs are barely visible amid the sea of summer blossoms that overtop them; and but for the inevitable church, with its spire lifted softly and silently to heaven, a stranger to the country would never guess that human life, with all its joys and sorrows, its hopes and its many fears, was beating beneath its shadow.

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Nor is the Arcadian scenery we have been trying to describe the only charm of Treguier. Upland and lowland, hill and dale, and pleasant valley, all bear the impress of antiquity upon them.

High among the crested cliffs, the remains of feudal castles, their ruined walls tapestried with ivy and crowned with golden wall-flower, stand boldly out against the sky. Lower down, the "Menhir" of the ancient Celt, with its huge, surrounding boulders and sea of scattered stones, looks weird-like in the moonlight, while the ruins of pagan temples and Christian monasteries rise up in the most unlikely and unexpected places-close to the village church, perhaps, or amid the clover blossoms of the slanting uplands-mingling the past and present so thoroughly in our minds that we can scarcely separate the memories of the one from the actual realities that greet us in the other.

The towns and cities of Treguier are as interesting as the country. Some are gay and pretty-the children of the present; others grave and hoary-the offspring of the past; and others again, picturesque and piquant, by the mixture of the two, like Dinan, a city that while resolutely preserving her old armour of fortifications has yet contrived to make them as beautiful as they once were terrible, by the gay villas and gardens rich in fruit and blossom, which she has flung everywhere, in and out, and up and down, among the old crevices and crumbling places in the walls, until she has girt them in, as it were, with an embroidery of flowers.

One city, however, there is in Treguier which claims a dismal preeminence over all the others. It is neither young nor old. The past throws no glamour over it; the present gives no flowers. It stands bolt upright like a living thing, but it nevertheless is dead; and those who once filled it with life and laughter are dead likewise, and buried beneath its pavement. It is only two posts by diligence from Sainte Brieuc; and should you ever find yourself on that road you will do well to descend from the vehicle and gaze for a moment on the scene before you.

It will probably be night, for the diligence starts late from Briene, but the faint lustre of the stars will enable you to perceive that you are standing in the midst of a large 'Place," or rather street, bordered on either side by great ghost-like looking mansions, dimly visible in the gloom, and provided with windows as carefully shuttered down, and strong doors as hermetically sealed, as if waiting the crash of doom ere they open to give up their dead.

For dead their inhabitants must be, if inhabitants indeed they ever had!

Not a light will you see, not a voice or the echo of a footstep hear; the pavement upon which you stand is as thick with grass and wild weeds as if they had grown there undisturbed for a century at least; and as you look forward into the gloom beyond, you will be more than human if something of superstitious awe does not creep through your frame and chill you to the very bone.

Hush! There is a sound at last!

A low spirit-like muttering coming up through the silence of the night, and falling vaguely on

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