Great soul! be comforted: thy prayer is heard More huge and terrible than human word May utter, mortal heart conceive, the throng Of woes that haste from Calvary to greet Thy every step. Like Jesus, hate and wrong Shall make of thee their jest; as purest wheat Thou shalt be crushed, yet newer life shalt claim; Slander, the hydra-tongued, shall cloud thy name; Treason with thee break bread; toil, hunger, cold, Thy daily ’tendants far from these sweet bowers. A score of years thy sorrows still enfold, But myriad souls shall feast on thy dark hours Through centuries to come, and learn of thee The path to peace, and prayer’s sweet mystery. The seraph waits with flaming lance to dart The fires of heaven within thy yearning heart, And up, far up the Mount of God will lead Thee face to face, as patriarch of old, With God; unveiled the Trinity shalt read, And its resplendent mysteries unfold To future doctors of the sacred lore. Then mount thy blood-stained path, heroic saint! While brave men stand aghast, strong hearts grow faint, Teresa’s seraph-soul its plaint shall pour Unsated yet: “More suffering, Lord, yet more!” M. S. P. SIX SUNNY MONTHS. BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC. CHAPTER VI. BIANCA’S FESTA. Bianca’s birthday coming, they celebrated it by a little trip into the country. It was getting late for excursions, the weather being hot even for the last of May. But on the day before the proposed journey a few ragged clouds, scudding now and then across the sky, promised refreshment. Clouds never come to Rome for nothing; even the smallest fugitive mist is a herald; and the family, therefore, looked anxiously to see if they were to be kept at home the next day――if the herald announced a royal progress, short and splendid, or a long siege of rainy days. They were sauntering, late in the afternoon, through a street of the Suburra, on one of those aimless walks that hit the mark of pleasure far oftener than planned pleasure-seeking does, and, seeing at their left a steep grade that ended in a stair climbing through light and shadow up the hillside, and going out under a dark arch into the light again, they followed it without asking questions, and presently found themselves in a quiet _piazza_ surrounded by churches and convents as silent and, apparently, uninhabited as a desert. The most living thing was a single lofty palm-tree that leaned out against the sky. A wall hid the base of it, where one would not have been surprised to have found a lion sleeping.