ed as
though he went thoughtfully away to seek beyond the bounds of life which
is apparent, the cause, the explanation, or the excuse for them. He
seemed at times to be asking God to commute these penalties. He examined
without wrath, and with the eye of a linguist who is deciphering a
palimpsest, that portion of chaos which still exists in nature. This
revery sometimes caused him to utter odd sayings. One morning he was in
his garden, and thought himself alone, but his sister was walking behind
him, unseen by him: suddenly he paused and gazed at something on the
ground; it was a large, black, hairy, frightful spider. His sister heard
him say:--

"Poor beast! It is not its fault!"

Why not mention these almost divinely childish sayings of kindness?
Puerile they may be; but these sublime puerilities were peculiar to
Saint Francis d'Assisi and of Marcus Aurelius. One day he sprained his
ankle in his effort to avoid stepping on an ant. Thus lived this just
man. Sometimes he fell asleep in his garden, and then there was nothing
more venerable possible.

Monseigneur Bienvenu had formerly been, if the stories anent his youth,
and even in regard to his manhood, were to be believed, a passionate,
and, possibly, a violent man. His universal suavity was less an instinct
of nature than the result of a grand conviction which had filtered into
his heart through the medium of life, and had trickled there slowly,
thought by thought; for, in a character, as in a rock, there may exist
apertures made by drops of water. These hollows are uneffaceable; these
formations are indestructible.

In 1815, as we think we have already said, he reached his seventy-fifth
birthday, but he did not appear to be more than sixty. He was not tall;
he was rather plump; and, in order to combat this tendency, he was fond
of taking long strolls on foot; his step was firm, and his form was
but slightly bent, a detail from which we do not pretend to draw any
conclusion. Gregory XVI., at the age of eighty, held himself erect and
smiling, which did not prevent him from being a bad bishop. Monseigneur
Welcome had what the people term a "fine head," but so amiable was he
that they forgot that it was fine.

When he conversed with that infantile gayety which was one of his
charms, and of which we have already spoken, people felt at their ease
with him, and joy seemed to radiate from his whole person. His fresh and
ruddy complexion, his very white teeth, all of w