parents to their children; and these are followed by a beautiful series of special prayers with regard to the various epochs of childhood and youth.

9. We have just commended an excellent threepenny book; but the most extraordinary threepence worth that has perhaps ever crossed our path is the St. Patrick's Day Number of The Weekly Freeman of Dublin. It is said to be the largest newspaper ever printed in our metropolis; but indeed this Number is not a newspaper but a magazine. If this vast amount of matter were printed in the large and widely spaced type of a three-volume novel, how many volumes would it fill? But the quality surprises more than the quantity. Three of the most gifted of living Irishwomen are very favourably represented here. Miss Jane Barlow has seldom shown to better advantage her wonderful power of entering into the thoughts of our good country people, and reproducing the subtle niceties of their conversation than in "The Stay-at-Homes." The story is of the simplest kind, but how admirably she realises the feelings of the two or three people concerned, and how naturally she makes them talk! "A Mother of Emigrants," by Lady Gilbert (Rosa Mulholland) is as exquisite in its style and in its simple pathos as anything that the author of "Marcella Grace" has given us. In a livelier strain, yet not without a quiet pathos of its own, is "The Flitting of the Old Folks" by Mrs. Blundell (“ M. E. Francis "). Then come characteristic stories by Richard Dowling, Edwin Hamilton, Mrs. Kennard, Standish O'Grady, Victor Power, etc. The instalment of the serial, "A Million of Money," by Mr. M. McD. Bodkin, M.P., makes us quite curious as to the vicissitudes of fortune which the brilliant young Member will of course have to go through before marrying Dorothy. The attractions of this Patrick's Day Number are not confined to fiction. Mr. D. J. O'Donoghue contributes the opening chapters of "The Life and Writings of James Clarence Mangan," which gives the result of much patient research, and will of course reappear hereafter in substantive form. A further instalment is given of "My Life in Two Hemispheres" by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy. There are articles also by Dr. Sigerson, Mr. Robert Donovan, Mr. J. F. Taylor, Q.C, and many others; and with other pieces of music we have a very pretty new song by Mr. F. A. Fahy, and a special article by Dr. Annie Patterson on "National Anthems." Besides these and many other special items, we have the ordinary constituents of a Weekly Freeman, not to speak of pictures and portraits by the dozen. We notice that the "Fireside Club," which for us is associated with the amiable memory of Rose Kavanagh, is still kept up with wonderful spirit and variety.

10. A Short Life of His Holiness Pope Leo XIII. for Popular Reading. Translated from the Italian by Charles Dawson (Dublin: Eason and Son, Limited).

An accident has delayed our notice of this admirable little book, and the delay has given it time to attain already a very large circulation. It is worthy of this success. After a very interesting introduction from the pen of the Translator, we have a clear and vivid account of all the events in the career of Joachim Pecci, now Leo the Thirteenth, in nineteen divisions, many of them too short to be called chapters. There are eight excellent illustrations, and the printing and binding are faultless. When we add that the price is only a shilling, we trust that enough has been said to extend still more widely the circulation of this biography of our Holy Father. "God bless our Pope, the great, the good!"

11. So much taste and care, and indeed "fine art," have been expended on the production of the devotional leaflets and cards issued by Mr. C. Bull of Suffolk Street, Dublin, that they are almost entitled to rank as literature and to be noticed among "New Books." They are very artistically printed and designed, and the holy words chosen for this purpose refer to all the subjects dear to pious hearts. Writing on St. Joseph's Eve, March 18, we may specify a very direct and simple prayer to St. Joseph which has already become very popular and lies between the leaves of many prayerbooks and breviaries.

THE GORSE.

[INE is no love like lily, frail as fair,

MINE

That woos soft suns, but, when the west wind sighs,
Shudders; no rose that droops when heart-mists rise;
No warmth that wanes when grief-clouds chill the air.
Nor is my love like pine or larch that dare

Storm-stroke or icy grip of north-sea skies.
These also fail: the summer pine-wood lies
Dark, silent, stern; the winter larch is bare.

But my love is the gorse, whose summer sheen

Lingers to cheer sad crags, whose heart-wealth fills

Bleak ways with fragrance, and bare wastes with gold,
Which still, when leaves, like dead hopes, o'er the wold
Flutter, or sobs of winter shake the hills,
Or tears of tempest blind the sun, is green.

K. R.

MAY, 1897.

IT

COMPENSATION.

A STORY.

T was an August morning, the sky cloudless, though a haze towards the horizon gave promise of heat to come.

Father John Daly, wide-awake on head, his hands clasped behind his back, was making in sober leisure the round of his garden. These lettuces were going to seed, Mrs. Nelligan must have them for her pig; those marrowfats were running their tendays-earlier-planted brethren hard. The Father shook his head. The nets might come from the cherries now. The raspberries? Well, given the prayed-for rain, there would be picking on them for many a day yet. The plums were a good crop-he must keep a look-out for those rascals, the wasps, this year; after all, nothing like the time-honoured remedy, a bottle of treacle and beer. Ah, here was the strawberry-bed at last, and surely there must be one or two. Father John retraced his steps to pick a cabbage-leaf, and then, first spreading his bandana on the ground, went down on his knees to hunt for the shy fruit.

"They will be a treat for her, poor soul," he said, as he got up and stretched his long back. "Poor soul, poor soul," he repeated to himself, as he stooped again to pick a Mrs. Sinkins pink or two, and a handful of mignonette.

The "poor soul" was one of his flock, Mary Macdonald "lying" at that moment at her brother's house half-way down the street. It had been the day before that the Doctor had warned Mary's gude-sister, [sister-in-law], that his patient had had the best of his

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skill, that, humanly speaking, she had but to "bide her time."

"It was ill news till cairry till her," Bell had told the co-religionists who had "gathered in on receipt of the news,"it was but ill news till cairry, an' Mary, puir body, never ower quick at the uptak', but I did my best, an' wha can do mair? 'Mary, wumman,' says I, whaun I tuk her up her pheesic at twal', 'Mary, wumman, here's yer pheesic till ye, but I'm fearin' it'll do ye little gude.'"

A murmur of approval of this delicate means of conveying to the sick woman a hint of her approaching end came from the listeners.

"Gude or ill, gie's 't here," says she.

"Aye?" the company listened with breathless attention. "It'll no' help ye oot o' yer bed," says I.

"Mebbe no’" says

she, an' oot wi' her han' t' seek a bit peppermint t' help wi' the taste o't oot o' her mouth. "There's times i' this warld," says I, "whaun medecine coonts for naught but waste? 'Weel,' says

she, 'I'll say this for mesel', I never grudgit my bawbee for the fu' o'a bottle yet,' an' till hear her, ye micht ha'e thocht there wasna siccan a thing as yer latter en' on God Awlmichtie's airth." At this point of the tale one of the listeners groaned.

"Weel," says I,-Bell went on-"I ha'e dune what I cud till prepare ye, as I hope in God's mairey till be prepared mesel'." "An' what said she than ?" a woman asked. The interest was unabated.

"What said she than? It's that yer aifter?' says she, an' peepit [peeped up in my face as gleg [sharp] as ocht-'it's that yer aifter?' says she. What hiner 't ye till speak oot? We're a' boon t' be ca'ed gin oor 'oor's come."

"That was a'?" A shade of disappointment crept over one or two of the faces.

"Bide ye a bit," Mrs. Macdonald shook her head, "Pit yer han' in un'er the boulster," says she, "an' fin' the key, an' open the kist, an' luik till the left han'," she says, an' ye'll see whether I'm ready or no'."

"Aye," the company drew closer to the narrator, who now, so to say, had her audience well in hand.

"Weel," Mrs. Macdonald spoke slowly, thus whetting the curiosity of her guests, "weel, believe me or no', if she hadna her deed-claithes [dead-clothes] ready, as ye may say, till a body's

han'-a pair o' sheets, as gude as new, an' a nicht-sark [gown] an' a mutch [cap] wi' the frills o' them a' crimped, an', in the croon o' the mutch, a chinnum as stiff as a deal boord."

Exclamations of astonishment and admiration came now from the listeners.

"Yer for a chinnum, (the linen band that supports the chin of the corpse), Mary ?" says I. "They're tellin' me they're no' the fashion noo."

They'll be fashion enoo for the mowdies [moles] onyway," says she, "an' I'm thinkin' that's a' the company I'll see." "Weel, it's as ye please," says I, "it would be a sin no' t' mak' use o' 't, an' it there." "Aye," says she, "but ye'll fin' anither bit paircel i' the croon o' the mutch," says she, "rax it t' me here, an' I'll mak' ye sensible whaut t' du wi't," says she, an' she oot wi' twa half-croons, "there's for my e'en," she says, "an' afterhin' for the first puir wife that comes walking the world [begging]," says she, "ye'll min' that?" she says-" an' here's what Hen'erson 'll be takin' for the coffin," she says; "There's nae ca' t' fash [trouble] wi' the hearse, I'm no' that big but yin or twa o' the lads 'll cairry me the length o' the chaipel easy, an' there's for the drap for their trooble," she says. "An' here's for Peter Hurly for delvin' the grave, an' I'll no' ha'e it scrimped [wanting in size] min' that. An' here's for his Reverence for the gude o' fower masses for my sowl, an' ye'll tak heed he gies them oot on the Sabbath." "My word, she's seen t' a'," a woman cried admiringly. "Bide ye," Mrs. Macdonald went on with emphasis. says she, "reach ower till the far en' o' the kist," an' if she hadna fower wax can'les dune up i' siller paper. "That's them," she says, "twa for my feet, an' twa for my heed, an' I'll lippen [trust] till yersel' for the saut."

"Noo,"

"Heard onybody the like!" the woman who had spoken before said.

"Ye may weel say that," Mrs. Macdonald returned, "but bide ye a wee yet. Ye'll leave me my scapulars," she says, "an' ye'll tak' my beads, an' ye'll mak' them intill as bonnie an m as ye can (it was old Peggie McFadden, frae Tipperary, taught me that trick)," she says, "an' that'll be for the Vargin-mother," says she, "an' ye'll pit the cross o't i' my twa han's," she says, "it's mebbe, wha kens? the way the Lord 'll ken his ain at the last day."