[7] I can’t resist the opportunity here to tell a story of a Beggar, the more so, that it made me laugh, and was told me by an Austrian officer; and Austrian officers are not the most laughter-compelling people in the world. My informant happened to alight one day at some post town in Italy, and was at once surrounded by the usual swarm of beggars, who, of course, fought for the honour (and profit) of carrying his baggage. Equally, of course, each beggar took a separate portion of the _impedimenta_—one a hat-box, one an umbrella, and so on—so that each would claim a separate reward. At the expenditure of much patience, and some small change, the traveller had at last paid each extortionate impostor that which was not due to him; when there approached a reverend, but ragged-looking man, with a long white beard, and who, with an indescribable look of dirty dignity, held out his hand like the rest. The traveller had remarked that this patriarch had stood aloof during the squabble for the luggage, and had moved neither hand nor foot in pretending to carry it. Naturally, before the traveller disbursed more coin, he briefly desired the man with the white beard to define his claim. The reply was, I think, incomparable for cool and dignified impudence. The patriarch drew himself up to his full height, placed his right hand on his breast, and in slow and solemn accents made answer:—“_Ed anche io sono stato presente._” “I, too, was present!” Sublime beggar! Mabel. I. In the sunlight:— Little Mab, the keeper’s daughter, singing by the brooklet’s side, With her playmates singing carols of the gracious Easter-tide; And the violet and the primrose make sweet incense for the quire, In the springlight, when the rosebuds hide the thorns upon the briar. II. In the lamplight:— With a proud defiant beauty, Mab, the fallen, flaunts along, Speaking sin’s words, wildly laughing, she who sang that Paschal song, And a mother lies a-dying in the cottage far away, And a father cries to Heaven, “THOU hast said, ‘_I will repay_.’” III. In the moonlight:— By the gravestone in the churchyard, Mabel, where her mother sleeps, Like the tearful saint of Magdala, an Easter vigil keeps:— There, trailing cruel thorns, storm-drenched, plaining with piteous bleat, The lost lamb (so her mother prayed) and the Good Shepherd meet. S. R. H. Studies in Animal Life. “Authentic tidings of invisible things; Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power, And central peace subsisting at the heart Of endless agitation.”—THE EXCURSION. CHAPTER III.