air of bashfulness and good humour
imaginable. One of them, a rosy, beautiful child, who proudly informed
us that she was six years old, put down her jug at a cottage-gate and
ran on before to show us the way, delighted to be singled out from her
companions for so important an office. We passed the grey walls of the
old church, walked down a lane, and soon came in sight of the Well, the
position of which was marked by a ruined Oratory, situated on some open
ground close at the side of the public pathway.

St. Cleer, or--as the name is generally spelt out of Cornwall--St.
Clare, the patron saint of the Well, was born in Italy, in the twelfth
century--and born to a fair heritage of this world's honours and this
world's possessions. But she voluntarily abandoned, at an early age, all
that was alluring in the earthly career awaiting her, to devote herself
entirely to the interests of her religion and the service of Heaven. She
was the first woman who sat at the feet of St. Francis as his disciple,
who humbly practised the self-mortification, and resolutely performed
the vow of perpetual poverty, which her preceptor's harshest doctrines
imposed on his followers. She soon became Abbess of the Benedictine Nuns
with whom she was associated by the saint; and afterwards founded an
order of her own--the order of "Poor Clares." The fame of her piety and
humility, of her devotion to the cause of the sick, the afflicted, and
the poor, spread far and wide. The most illustrious of the ecclesiastics
of her time attended at her convent as at a holy shrine. Pope Innocent
the Fourth visited her, as a testimony of his respect for her virtues;
and paid homage to her memory when her blameless existence had closed,
by making one among the mourners who followed her to the grave. Her name
had been derived from the Latin word that signifies _purity_; and from
first to last, her life had kept the promise of her name.

Poor St. Clare! If she could look back, with the thoughts and interests
of the days of her mortality, to the world that she has quitted for
ever, how sadly would she now contemplate the Holy Well which was once
hallowed in her name and for her sake! But one arched wall, thickly
overgrown with ivy, still remains erect in the place that the old
Oratory occupied. Fragments of its roof, its cornices, and the mouldings
of its windows lie scattered on the ground, half hidden by the grasses
and ferns twining prettily around them. A double