whole system the warmth of a kindly
social feeling—not only within the limits of
each class, but by occasional gatherings of
the whole body of lecturers, and of the
classes, in the college hall or library, with
good-humour to promote right understandings
between one another. Two or three days
before the work begins, after the Christmas
holidays, there will be such a gathering, in
which students who then happen to be newly
entered, may meet those are to be their
teachers and companions, in simple friendly
intercourse, and set out with the best chance
of a cheerful, common understanding.

There can be no doubt that this is a
Minerva, with her heart in the right place,
who looks as handsome by the gaslight as by
light of day.

BATHILDA.

THERE is a dim old tale of beauty
    Told in the land of Gaul,
And the tender light of love and duty
   It streameth through it all.

To serve the good Mayor Archambaud,
    There stood a Saxon slave:
Her looks so fair, her voice so low,
    Sweeten'd the cup she gave.

Cried he, "A lonely lot I rue;
    My wife is laid in grave:
Be thou my bride, in honour true,
    My lovely Saxon slave."

A tender sorrow in her face
    Spoke in the tear that fell:
It said, "I may not fill her place
    Whom once I served so well."

With steadfast but averted look,
    Back from the hall she turn'd;
And he whom, silent, she forsook
    Long years her absence mourn'd.

Where sad she wander'd none may know,—
    Where pass'd her sainted life.
At last, the good Mayor Archambaud
    He took another wife.

When high in hall the feast was laid
    Before the wedded pair,
Behold, the faithful Saxon maid
    She stood beside his chair!

To that same feast, as Heaven would will,
    There came King Clovis brave:
Who should the royal goblet fill,—
    Who but the Saxon slave?

He gazed: and with a sudden start,
    The king the cup let fall:
There ran sweet music through his heart,
    And silence through the hall.

Soon, low before the Saxon maid
    Down bow'd his soul of pride:
"Wilt be my queen?" he softly said;
    And softly she replied:

"Thou lov'st me with no common love;
    So, Clovis, let it be:
And help me, Heaven, as I shall prove
    Help meet for France and thee!"

Low on the footsteps of her throne
    She vow'd a vow of truth,
To crush the slavery that had thrown
    Its blight upon her youth.

Right royally her vow she kept,
    And strove with heart and hand;
Nor rested, till her power had swept
    That scourge from off the land.

When famine dogg'd the peasant's way,
    And hunger watch'd his door,
Her jewell'd robes she tore away,
    And gave them to the poor.

When widowhood and sorrow came,
    A cloister'd cell she trod:
To France she left a deathless name;
    Her soul she gave to God.

THE ALHAMBRA.

THE first thing a man generally does when
he gets into a new room, is to look out of
the window.

And this is what I did, following the
traveller's instinct, when I got into my
bedroom at the Fonda Minerva, Acerra del
Darro Carrera del Xenil, Granada. I had
come in from a long ride across broad
sandy suburbs, and through villages where
old knights' arms were carved over every
door; and now, having refreshed myself by
slices of juicy melon and the sweet opiate of
a cheroot, I ran to the window and got on
the balcony, which looked out on the river
and the street.

"Whereabouts is the Alhambra, then?"
I said to the waiter, who was obsequiously
shifting a chair, looking out into the
intense sunlight, that made me leave go
of the balcony frame as if it had been
red-hot.

"Up there, señor," said the waiter, pointing
to a hill rising above the line of range
which my eyes had been skimming.

I looked, and saw a sharp-edged, square,
red tower, rising out of trees on the hill
before me. My first impression is of a cork
model; of a pastille-box; of something almost
toy-like; but I remember the old Moorish
inscription in the Alhambra bath-room:
"What is most to be wondered at, is the
felicity which awaits men in this palace of
delight." So I cram down all depreciatory
doubts, and start off to scale the steep Calle
de los Gomeles, that leads to the gate de las
Granadas, by which you enter the palace
jurisdiction. That small trim summer-house-
looking tower, not bastioned and bulwarked,
like our own Gothic towers of strength, that
deride the thunder and bare their breasts for
the lightning to splinter on, raises fears in me,
and I hasten to see if the Alhambra is a
palace of the Arabian Nights, or only a mere
tawdry ruin, bedaubed with faded colour,
like a bruised moth's wing.

I pass a fountain-square; and, guided by
where the citadel must be, begin to wind