Our Triune Life by Regeneration, | REVIEWS :

THE late sunshine of an April day was throwing its glamour over the streets, and squares, and ancient buildings of Bruges.

Upon the quaint gables of the carved palaces, relics of former splendour, on the spires, towers, and belfries of the many churches, the sluggish canals creeping by deserted wharfs and overhung by old houses, the budding trees of the avenues, or behind the garden walls of solemn old convents-on all these the sunshine rested and clung caressingly, lighting them up with its mellow glow; while down below in the streets where the tall houses shut it out, and in the great dark churches, full of their treasures of painting and carving, and across the wide market-square where the great Belfry "watches o'er the town," the shadows were gathering thicker and more deep as the day drew to its close.

There is an old house which stands in the furthest corner of a certain small Place planted with elms, and turns its mullioned windows away from the street-a grave old house that seems to retire and hide behind

its high walls like one who is weary of life, for it has felt the rains, and the snows, and the sunshine of more than three hundred years— so the legend says which runs amid the carving of the bas-relief above the doorway: "Anno Dom. 1566. Qui seminant in lacrymis: in ex

ultatione metent."

The Place leads nowhere except to an ancient conduit-fountain at the end of the avenue; the red tourelles of a convent chapel peep over a high wall; in the distance the tower of Saint Sauveur's can be seen between the elms. It is one of those quiet corners of an old town where the very air is full of by-gone days, and time itself seems to go with a slower tread.

The jalousies of the old house in the corner were half closed, for the gleamy afternoon sun came slanting over the roofs and the air was so still that not a leaf of the tall elm trees fluttered against the sky.

The salon was as quiet as the avenue outside; there were only two people in the room, one of them, a lady—young, petite, and pretty— was reading amid the cushions of a sofa, with a large white poodle nestled at her feet; the other, a girl several years younger, who sat at an embroidery frame beside one of the windows.

It was a pretty old room with soft pink and gray walls, painted and panelled, and a good deal of old furniture, cabinets of fine Flemish work, quaint painted screens, and old china.

The lady on the sofa with her fair bright face was quite in harmony with her surroundings; she might have been a dame d'honneur of Mary of Burgundy's court, or what would have been nearer to the reality, a Flemish beauty of some great burgher family in the old palmy days of Bruges.

The girl at the embroidery frame was quite different; there was too great an absence of colour about her for many people to have called her pretty, but her colourless oval face had a sweet expression, and there was a rare grace about her head with her long neck and pale soft hair.

She worked very quietly and steadily, as though she were tracing her thoughts through the bright mazes of the pattern she embroidered, or like another Lady of Shalott weaving the scenes of her Mirror of Life. The room was very still, and the scent of mignonette from the boxes set along the balcony outside, came in through the windows. At last she paused from her "weaving," and looked dreamily out beyond the court into the avenue. It was quite empty, and the shadows of the

elms fell in long vista across the sunlight; the carillon of the Tour des Halles began to chime five o'clock, the great clock boomed the hour; the children of the convent poor-school came trooping through the postern-door, and began to play beneath the trees, filling the silent avenue with shrill shouts.

"Luce!" said the lady on the sofa.

The girl awoke out of her reverie and answered, "Yes, Stephanie?" "Are you dreaming of the prospective pleasures of Madame Verhoeven's bal de costume, that you are so silent ?"

"Not at all, for I am not sure that I shall be there, Stephanie." The little lady laid down her book, took up some lace-work from her knee, and began to work with a decided air as she said,

Now, petite sœur, do not let us have any more of those follies, I beseech you; of course you must go, there cannot be two opinions about it; every one will expect you to be there, and besides, I want you for my own quadrille, so that is settled."

"But Stephanie, would it not be possible to make some excuses for me? we have been so gay all the winter you know; it seems to me as if I had done nothing but dance and amuse myself all the time we were at Brussels."

"As if that were not just what you were to do, little foolish one! And so you are already tired of the world you would say, at the mature age of nineteen, and only emancipated last midsummer from the thraldom of the Révérende Mère Augustine," laughed Stephanie.

"It was a very pleasant thraldom, Stephanie; remember you have said yourself that your old schooldays there were the pleasantest of your life after all," answered Luce Vanheegue, smiling too, and still watching the children at play in the sun and the shadow.

"Possible, mon ange!" said Madame Dambricourt, elevating her shoulders, and raising her eyebrows, "but everything comes in its own time, and now you have finished with those days, and must enjoy yourself like other people. Most young girls would be dancing with pleasure at the very idea of a bal de costume instead of making excuses for staying at home, but you are so strange, Luce. I hope you are not going to become too dévote to go into the world now we are home again, that would certainly be carrying one's religion to extremes. I imagine that Monsieur de Senlecq will probably be there," she added, after a pause, glancing at Luce from under her eyelashes.

Luce Vanheegue bent over her flowers and began to work once more,

and was silent. Down in the Avenue the children were sing-songing their Flemish rhymes at their game.

"I did not know that Monsieur de Senlecq was coming to Bruges,” she said after a while.

"Oh, did I not mention it? Yes, Madame Verhoeven is a cousin of his, and I heard him tell our father at Brussels that he had an idea of coming to pay her a little visit during the Easter recess of the Chambers, or part of it at least, for he was going to Senlecq to stay with his mother first," answered Stephanie, trying in vain to get a glimpse of her sister's face behind the frame.

"I wonder why he does not stay with her at Senlecq all the time!" said Luce hastily, with a little chagrin in her voice.

Ah, ma mie! what do I know? he had perhaps a fancy for cultivating a friendship with his cousin; or perhaps he wished to study the fine arts in this ancient city, though I do not think M. de Senlecq's tastes lie quite in that direction," said Stephanie, laughing.

and

The face that bent over the embroidery was not so peaceful now, Luce seemed to weave a troubled scene into the twining flower-mazes. "Monsieur le Comte de Senlecq !" said a voice, ushering a gentleman into the room.

"How very surprising! we were just speaking of you, Monsieur le Comte," cried Stephanie, fluttering a welcome amid her cushions, lace, and poodle, which set up a shrill barking in chorus. Luce, standing tall and slender, bowed gravely.

"Vraiment, madame! I am flattered; I only arrived yesterday from Senlecq, and hasten to pay my respects to you, and to Mademoiselle your charming sister."

We were imagining that you were with Madame your mother at Senlecq, was it not so, Luce? Frou-frou, will you be quiet? you are a veritable little villain !" but Frou-frou would on no account be silenced, objecting on principle to having her afternoon nap disturbed by Madame's visitors, especially if they were gentlemen with canes and boots.

The Comte de Senlecq was a man of about forty years of age, short and rather stout; he had an ordinary-looking face, devoid of anything remarkable beyond a general expression of good-nature; he wore a white waistcoat with a trim scarlet geranium in his button-hole and lemon-coloured gloves. He sat toying rather awkwardly, or perhaps nervously, with a plaything of a little silver-headed cane.