Eustochium quietly took up the guidance of her mother's convents and hospice and gently urged Jerome to resume his work. Writing almost countless letters, translating and commenting on the Scriptures he passed still many years, and at last, dying, at his own wish his body was buried in a hollow of the rocks at Bethlehem. To this day, it is said, his name can still be traced graven in the rock. In the fifteen hundred years that have passed since the death of Paula, the homes of piety and charity established by her strength and love have been swept away. No tradition even of their site is left. But with one storied chamber is connected a warm interest. It is the rocky room, in one of the half caves, half excavations, close to that of the Nativity, and communicating with it by rudely hewn stairs and passages. In this, the legend runs, Jerome established himself while his convent was building. He called it his paradise. Sunlit from above, with prayer and the music of alleluias sounding there night and day, brightened by the glow of the pure affections of Paula and Eustochium and sanctified by their great work, from it flowed rivers of water to refresh the earth. V JOAN OF ARC On the 6th of January, 1412, Jeanne d'Arc, or, as we call her, Joan of Arc, was born at Domremy, a little village on the left bank of the Meuse, on land belonging to the French crown. Her parents, Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle Romée, were simple peasants, "of good life and reputation," who brought up their children to work hard, fear God and honour the saints. Besides Joan, they had four children--three sons, Jacques, Jean and Pierre, and a daughter, Catherine. Joan's native valley was fair and fertile. The low hills that bounded it were covered with thick forests, and the rich meadows along the Meuse were gay with flowers, which gave to the chief town in the district its name of Vaucouleurs, _Vallis colorum_. Domremy, built on a slope, touched upon those flowery meadows, but over the hill behind it spread an ancient oakwood, the _Bois Chesnu_ of legend and prophecy. Between the forest and the village rose solitary a great beech, "beautiful as a lily," about which the country people told a thousand tales. They called it the "Fairies' Tree," the "Tree of the Ladies," the "Beautiful May." In old times the fairies had danced round it, and under its shadow a noble knight had formerly dared to meet and talk with an elfin lady.