Of Murillo's "Marys of the Conception, that fill the room with light and majesty," Colonel Hay beautifully says: "They hang side by side, so alike and yet so distinct in character. One is a woman in knowledge and a goddess in purity; the other, absolute innocence, startled by the stupendous revelation, and exalted by the vaguely comprehended glory of the future. It is before this picture that the visitor always lingers longest. The face is the purest expression of girlish loveliness possible to art. (Supposed to be the face of his daughter, Francesca.) The Virgin floats, up-borne by rosy clouds; flocks of pink cherubs flutter at her feet, waving palm branches. The golden air is thick with suggestions of dim, celestial faces, but nothing mars the imposing solitude of the Queen of Heaven, shrined alone, throned in the luminous azure. Surely no man ever understood or interpreted, like this grand Andalusian, the power that the worship of woman exerts on the religions of the world. All the passionate love that has been poured out in all the ages at the feet of Ashtaroth and Artemis and Aphrodite and Freya found visible form and color at last on that immortal canvas, where, with his fervor of religion, and the full strength of his virile devotion to beauty, he created, for the adoration of those who should follow him, this type of the perfect feminine,-- "'Thee! standing loveliest in the open heaven! Ave Maria! only heaven and Thee!'" The story of St. Elizabeth is both touching and beautiful. The daughter of Andreas II., King of Hungary, born in 1207, she was betrothed, in her childhood, to Duke Louis of Thuringia. She early developed the most generous and spiritual character, giving to the poor, praying much, even at midnight, on the bare, cold earth, winning for herself the hatred of a fashionable court and the adoration of her subjects. Various legends are told of her. "When Elizabeth was ministering to her poor at Eisenach," says Mrs. Jameson, "she found a sick child cast out from among the others because he was a leper, and so loathsome in his misery that none would touch him or even go nigh him; but Elizabeth, moved with compassion, took him in her arms, carried him up the steep ascent to the castle, and, while her attendants fled at the spectacle, and her mother-in-law, Sophia, loaded her with reproaches, she laid the sufferer in her own bed. Her husband was then absent, but shortly afterwards his horn was heard to sound at the gate. Then his mother, Sophia, ran out to meet him, saying, 'My son, come hither! See with whom thy wife shares her bed!' And she led him up to the chamber, telling him what had happened. This time, Louis was filled with impatience and disgust; he rushed to the bed and snatched away the coverlid; but behold! instead of the leper, there lay a radiant infant, with the features of the New-born in Bethlehem; and while they stood amazed, the vision smiled, and vanished from their sight.