ys, in the very effort to conceal it, how little she has
done to protect her children's lives, we realize the horror of her
situation, and pity even while we condemn, her. But some words of
selfish rejoicing at her own deliverance precede the fatal stroke, and
in some degree challenge it. And Mr. Browning farther preserves the
spirit of the tradition, by giving to her sentence the sanction of the
village priest or "pope," into whose presence the decapitated body has
been conveyed. The secular authorities are also on the spot, and condemn
the murder as contrary both to justice and to law. But the pope declares
that the act of Ivan Ivanovitch has been one of the higher justice which
is above law. He himself is an aged man--so aged, he says, that he has
passed through the clouds of human convention, and stands on the firm
basis of eternal truth. Looking down upon the world from this
vantage-ground, he sees that no gift of God is equal to that of life; no
privilege so high as that of reproducing its "miracle;" and that the
mother who has cast away her maternal crown, and given over to
destruction the creatures which she has borne, has sinned an "unexampled
sin," for which a "novel punishment" was required. No otherwise than did
Moses of old, has Ivan Ivanovitch interpreted the will--shown himself
the servant--of God.

How Mr. Browning's Ivan Ivanovitch himself judges the case, is evidenced
by this fact, that after wiping the blood from his axe, he betakes
himself to playing with his children; and that when the lord of the
village has--reluctantly--sent a deputation to inform him that he is
free, the words, "how otherwise?" are his only answer.

"TRAY" describes an instance of animal courage and devotion which a
friend of Mr. Browning's actually witnessed in Paris. A little girl had
fallen into the river. None of the bystanders attempted to rescue her.
But a dog, bouncing over the balustrade, brought the child to land;
dived again, no one could guess why; and after battling with a dangerous
current, emerged with the child's doll; then trotted away as if nothing
had occurred.

This "Tray" is made to illustrate Mr. Browning's ideal of a hero, in
opposition to certain showy and conventional human types; and the little
narrative contains some scathing reflections on those who talk of such a
creature as merely led by instinct, or would dissect its brain alive to
discover how the "soul" is secreted there.

"NED BRATTS" was