The family smiled and hushed themselves, not to disturb their rest. Each heart was softly touched by the nearness of so many tiny sleepers. Peace seemed to float silently out from under the thronged branches and laden twigs of those motionless trees, in which no passer-by would have detected a sign of life. “I think,” the Signora said softly after a while, “that when the priest comes next Holy Saturday to bless my house, I would like to have him bless these trees too, that no net or trap may be thrown over them by night, and no rifle be fired into them by day. The trees and their tenants belong to my household.” “Your house is blessed every year?” Mr. Vane asked. “Yes. On Holy Saturday the priest goes round through every parish, a little boy with him bearing holy water, and blesses all the houses, if the people desire it. The custom is, too, to have ready on a table a dish of boiled eggs, an ornamented loaf of cake, and a plate of sausages. These are blessed, to be eaten Easter Sunday. I am not sure, but I fancy that the custom is a remnant of times when the Lenten fast was, perhaps, more strictly and universally observed than now. Now, whether from a deterioration of health or of faith, very few persons consider themselves strong enough to observe the regulations perfectly. Modern civilization seems to be very weakening in every way.” “I am inclined to think that good comes, or will come, out of all these changes and seeming failures,” Mr. Vane observed. “If the races have become weaker physically, their passions have also become weaker; and it may be that, in order to tame them, it was necessary to reduce their physical strength. We do so sometimes with wild animals. Perhaps when we shall have learned better how to live, and, after running the circle of follies, grown soberer and wiser, the increasing vitality will go more in the intellectual and spiritual ways than it did before. I am hopeful of the human race, from the very fact that it is so uneasy about itself. The audacious boldness of some nations seems to me to spring from desperation rather than confidence. There is no confidence anywhere. Fear rules the world. Everywhere strong, or even desperate, remedies are proposed, and philanthropic doctors abound. “Malgré les tyrans, Tout réussira,” sing the communists; and I believe that things will come out right in spite of every difficulty, and be more secure because of the difficulties past. When we shall have looked about in vain in every other direction, we shall at last learn to look upward for the solution. But excuse me for talking so long in this beautiful silence. Your Easter eggs were not meant to hatch such a sermon, Signora.“ They rose, presently, to go into the house, and, as they loitered slowly along the passages, Mr. Vane remarked to the Signora: “I observe that the natural direction of your eyes is upward.”