Do you know I could live with that picture and
feel that I always had something to make me happy? It is so homy. See
how comfortable the girl is! Of course a good healthy girl has no
business to be sleeping in the daytime, but we can forgive her now
that van der Meer has caught her asleep and let us see her. Then look
at that wonderful rug! Was ever anything so soft and velvety? If we
knew about rugs we might tell its name and maybe its age.

Van der Meer had a way of catching people without their knowing it. He
seems to have cut a piece out of the wall where he peeped in and
painted what he saw. We are glad the girl left the door open into
another room so that we can see the table and pictures and part of the
window-frame. I think these things are reflected in a looking-glass.

Van der Meer painted only about forty pictures, and eight of those are
in the United States. They are among our greatest art treasures.

[Illustration: FIG. 47. THE SLEEPING GIRL. VAN DER MEER. Courtesy of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City]

ST. ANTONY AND THE CHRIST-CHILD

BARTHOLOME ESTEBAN MURILLO (1618-1682)

Many very curious legends are told of St. Antony of Padua, who died in
1231. He was a close friend of St. Francis (see "St. Francis and his
Birds," page 76). One story says that one time he was preaching about
the Savior when the child Jesus came and sat on his open Bible. It is
this story that Murillo painted his picture to illustrate. Again and
again Murillo has shown us St. Antony with the Christ-child, but never
more beautifully than here. This is one of Murillo's greatest
religious pictures.

Another story is told of St. Antony. One day he was preaching the
funeral sermon of a rich young man when he exclaimed:

"His heart is buried in his treasure-chest; go seek it there and you
will find it."

Sure enough when the friends of the rich young man opened the
treasure-chest there was the heart, and no heart was found in the
young man's dead body.

[Illustration: FIG. 48. ST. ANTHONY AND THE CHRIST-CHILD. MURILLO.
MUSEUM OF SEVILLE, SPAIN.]

KING LEAR

EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY (1852-1911)

The story of "King Lear" is one of the most pitiful of Shakespeare's
play. It is about the thanklessness of children to a father. Old _King
Lear_ had three daughters--_Goneril_, _Regan_, and _Cordelia_. He
loved these daughters dearly and he believed that they loved him. As
he grew old in life he thought he woul