I shouldn't be led away by it, and I haven't been."

But it was hotter that day, and in the afternoon, when the sun's power was greatest-forgetting the warning of his brothers' example, or rather setting it at defiance, with the assurance that though he sought the shade he need not listen to the music-he crept within the border of the cool forest, and lay down.

He had hardly done so when his senses were rapt by the delicious but deceitful strains. "The woods must be full of fairies!" he cried; "this can be no earthly music-I must follow it up and see what manner of instruments they are, for never on earth was heard the like!" But as he went on, the music always seemed farther off, and farther again, till at last the church bells rang the Ave, and the music ceased.

Then Karl woke to a sense of his weakness and folly; and though he ran every step of the way back to his geese, only two were there! Though he had now found the same fate befall himself as his brothers, in all particulars, yet he could not forbear searching for the lost geese; but of course it was in vain, and he had to return to the castle with but two. Nothing could look more miserable, or more ludicrous, than this diminished procession-Karl at the head of his two geese, who had gone out in the morning with such a goodly flock.

He would have gladly slunk away without exchanging a word with any one, but he could not escape being taken before the master, who scolded him in the same words in which he had chided his brothers, but gave him a fine rich cake to take home.

The cake was round, and it was very inconvenient to attempt to secure it by means of a string, but Karl had declared he would bring home his reward that way, and so it was a point of honour with him to do it. But passing by a Hof, on his way home, where was a large and powerful watch-dog on guard, he set off running to escape its grip. This was the very way to attract the beast's notice, however; and off it set in pursuit, much faster than Karl's legs could carry him away-and then, having jumped upon him and knocked him down, seized his cake, and devoured it before his eyes!

Karl had now to go home as empty-handed as his brothers, and 'as full of tears; but his father comforted him, and checked the rising gibe of his youngers by reminding them that all had failed equally; so they all joined in a good-humoured laugh in which there was nothing of bitterness.

The father then asked them if any of them wished to go out into the world and seek fortune again; but they all agreed that there was nothing to be gained by the move, and that though there were positions which at first sight seemed more

brilliant and more delectable than their own, yet that each had its compensatory trials, and that they were best where God had placed them.

Henceforth, however, they were ashamed of renewing their grumblings, but, each making the best of his lot, they became noted as the most contented and, therefore, happiest family of the whole valley.

ST. PETER'S THREE LOAVES'.

N the days when our Lord and Saviour walked this earth with His apostles, it

happened one day that He was passing, with St. Peter for His companion, through a secluded valley, and that discoursing, as was His wont, of the things of the Kingdom of God, and raising the mind of His disciple from the earthly to the heavenly, they noticed not how the hours

1 The stories of our Lord's life on earth, treated with perfect idealism, sketching His character as He was pleased to manifest it, or His miraculous acts, pervade the popular mythology of all Catholic peoples. I have given one from Spain, by the title of "Where One can Dine, Two can Dine," in "Patrañas," of the same character as this Tirolese one; and perhaps it is not amiss to repeat the observation I felt called to make upon it, that it would be the greatest mistake to imagine that any thing like irreverence was intended in such stories. They are the simple utterances of peoples who realized so utterly and so devoutly the facts recorded in the Gospels that the circumstances of time and place ceased to occupy them at all, and who were wont to make the study

went by. Nevertheless, they had been walking since daybreak over rough mountain tracks and across swollen torrents many a weary mile, and had eaten nothing all day, for their way had led them far from the haunts of men; but as noon came down upon them they approached the precincts of a scattered hamlet. The bells of all the large farmhouses were ringing to call in the labourers from the field to their midday meal, and announced a community of sensations in the world around akin to those with which St. Peter had for a long time past been tormented. The heat increased, and the way grew more weary, and St. Peter found it more and more difficult to keep his attention alive to his Master's teaching.

The merciful Saviour was not slow to perceive what ailed His disciple, and kept on the look-out for any opportunity of satisfying him as anxiously as if the need had been His own; and thus, while St.

of our Lord's example their rule of conduct so habitually, that to imagine Him sharing the accidents of their own daily life came more natural to them than to think of Him in the faroff East. These stories were probably either adapted from the personal traditions which the first evangelists may well be thought to have brought with them unwritten, or invented by themselves, in all good faith, as allegories, by means of which to inculcate by them upon their children the application of His maxims to their own daily acts. They demand, therefore, to be read in this spirit for the sake of the pious intention in which they are conceived, rather than criticised for their rude simplicity or their anachronisms.