"Cannot match that steely sapphire,
Or that line of burnished gold.
How it sparkles as it stretches
Straight as any lance across!
Never hint of such a luster

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Lives within my brightest floss!

Ah, that blaze of splendid color!

I could kneel with folded hands, As I watch it slowly dying

Off the emerald pasture-lands. How my crimson pales to ashen In this flood of sunset hue, Mocking all my poor endeavor, Foiling all my skill can do!"

As they heard her sigh, the children

Pressed around their mother's knees:

Nay," they clamored, "where in Antwerp
Are there broideries such as these?
Why, the famous master, Rubens,
Craves the piece we think so rare
Asks our father's leave to paint it
Flung across the Emperor's chair!

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How ye talk ! " she smiled.
often,

As I draw my needle through,
Gloating o'er my tints, I fancy
I might be a painter too;
I, a woman, wife, and mother,
What have I to do with Art!
Are not ye my noblest pictures?
Portraits painted from my heart!

Yet I think, if midst my seven

"Yet

One should show the master's bent,
One should do the things I dream of,
All my soul would rest content.'
Straight the four-year-old Antonio
Answered, sobbing half aloud:
I will be your painter, painting

Pictures that shall make you proud!

Quick she snatched the youngest darling, Smoothing down his golden hair,

Kissing with a crazy rapture

Mouth and cheek and forehead fair

Saying 'mid her sobbing laughter,
"So! my baby! you would like
To be named with Flemish masters,
Rembrandt, Rubens, and-
Van Dyck!"

A gift in need, though small indeed,
Is large as earth and rich as heaven.

- JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

Do you know what fairy palaces you may build of good thoughts?-JOHN RUSKIN.

It is never too late to write gentle words.

- GEORGE ELIOT.

There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

JOHN RUSKIN.

Each lip must learn the taste of truth, Each foot must feel its way. WHITTIER.

Pleasure comes through toil; when one gets to love his work, his life is a happy

one. -RUSKIN.

AN ANECDOTE OF VAN DYCK

HEN Antonio Van Dyck was fifteen

WHE

years old he was admitted to the studio of the great master, Rubens. The thought of his mother's love and of her great pride in him dwelt forever in his heart, and kept him constantly at his best, so that Rubens soon considered him his best pupil.

No one had ever been permitted to enter the studio of the great artist during his absence, until, one day, a crowd of the students bribed Rubens' old housekeeper to give them the key. In they all trooped and began to examine at their leisure the work of the master. Soon there was some rough play, and one young man was pushed heavily against a picture on the easel with its colors not yet dry. He was quickly pulled back, but it was too late. The chin and throat of the figure were blurred.

The students were in despair. At last