the Pontiff's return to his See, did not wait for what they had to say, but followed his own judgment, paying no heed to their opposition. She implores him in the name of Christ to hasten to make up his mind to depart, but recommends him to keep his intentions up to the last moment a secret. This letter was dictated to StefanoMaconi, and Father Raymond when he had translated it intoLatin carried it to the Pope.

Two days after her arrival, having received a command to appear before the Pope and speak in the name of the Florentines, Catherine of Siena, attended by Father Raymond of Capua, stood in the presence of the Supreme Pontiff, who was seated on his throne and surrounded by the purple-robed cardinals. The saint spoke in her exquisite Italian-she knew no other language-and Father Raymond translated what she said into Latin for the Pope, who did not understand what was then considered a vulgar tongue. When she had finished speaking, the Holy Father, who seemed to be greatly impressed by her views, said to her: "In order that you may see how truly anxious I am for peace and concord, I leave all in your hands, only recommending you to have due regard for the honour and the interests of the Holy Church."

Catherine began with all the ardour of her nature to dispose matters so that when the Florentine ambassadors, who were to have immediately followed her to Avignon, should arrive, peace might be made without delay. She spoke with many of the cardinals, and with several temporal lords, and all seemed to promise well. But the Eight of War were in no haste to send the ambassadors. Their most earnest desire was to keep things in their existing state, and maintain their own position. They talked of peace merely to please the people, who were scandalized by the attitude the republic had assumed towards the Holy See. Gregory, noticing the delay, said to Catherine that the Florentines, who had evidently counted on deceiving the Pope, would in the end deceive even herself; they would not, send any embassy, or if they did, no conclusion would be come to. Finally arrived three envoys from Florence, well instructed by the Eight to spend the time in fruitless negotiations, and not to let peace be made.

Meanwhile, however, there were other great interests claiming attention which Catherine's stay in Avignon gave her an opportunity of advancing. First among these, of course, were the Pope's return to Rome and the crusade against the Turks. On these and other subjects she not only spoke to Gregory, but, for greater convenience, as he did not understand her tongue, wrote letters to him from Giovanni de Regio's tower-like mansion. To Charles V. of France nothing was more repugnant than this project of the Pope's desertion of Avignon; and the king desired his second son, Louis, Duke of Anjou, who had gone to the. Papal court about some matter in dispute with the king of Aragon, to dissuade the Holy Father from putting his resolve into execution. The Duke was by

no means prepossessed in favour of Catherine of Siena, but she had no sooner become acquainted with him than she recognised in the king's son the fitting man to be entrusted with the conduct of the crusade, and she proposed to Gregory that Louis should be named commander of the expedition. The Duke's distrust was, before long, changed to affection and reverence; he was anxious that the saint should visit the French court and try whether peace might not be made with Edward of England. She would not do this; but she wrote to the king a letter full of eloquent and wise counsel. There was no difficulty, however, in persuading Catherine to visit the Duke and Duchess of Anjou when their home, on account of an accident that had occurred at a banquet they had given, was a house of mourning. She went to their residence and remained

three days with them.

One day the Pope sent for Catherine and asked her would she recommend him to carry out his intention of returning to Rome, notwithstanding the many and serious obstacles that opposed the execution of his design. She excused herself, saying it was not fitting that an insignificant woman should decide such a question. Gregory said he did not ask her counsel; he wanted to know the will of God. "How, then," she replied, can you be ignorant of the will of God-you who vowed to him that you would return to Rome?” The Pontiff, greatly astonished at being thus reminded of a vow which he had indeed made, but had never spoken of to any one, became more than ever convinced that it was the voice of God that urged him to depart, He commanded that a galley should lie at anchor in the Rhone ready for an emergency, though its possible destination was kept a secret.

Suddenly, on the 13th September, 1376, Gregory XI. announced his intention of at once leaving Avignon and returning to Rome. The time was gone by for murmurs or objections; the court must remove from the seat of peace and security in Province; the cardinals must leave their too well loved native land; the citizens of Avignon must be satisfied to see their glory vanish. But the Pope did not mean to drop down the Rhone in that galley anchored under the shadow of the walls; he would go in solemn cavalcade to Marseilles, and under the escort of the Knights of S. John of Jerusalem, embark at that port for Italy. In the midst of gloom, stupefaction, and incidents of ill-omen, the Holy Father bade adieu to that palace sanctuary built upon a rock-so grandly fortified without, so exquisitely adorned within. His relations implored him to stay, and his aged father flung himself across the threshold and with uncontrollable emotion, adjured him not to go forth an exile from the land of his birth; the very mule on which he had mounted refused to take the road. Strong now in his resolve, nothing could retard the Pope. Another mule was brought, and the procession, sadly enough, moved on. The clergy, the religious, the citizens of Marseilles, came out to meet the Holy Father as he

approached their city; they paid him all the honour due to so exalted a guest; they mourned over his departure, as all France was sure to do. Ten days he lingered on the shores of that sea that was to bear him from his place of rest to a land strewn with thorns and tempest-riven.

Of the twenty-two ships awaiting the signal of departure, the greater number belonged to the Knights of S. John. Foreign states, however, were not unrepresented. Among the rest appeared a splendid galley belonging to Florence; for the republic, though at war with Gregory, could not but rejoice with the rest of Italy when the tidings had gone forth that the Head of the Church was returning to the City of the Apostles.

The venerable Grand Master, Don Juan Fernandez Eradia, commanded the galley in which the Pope was to embark. On the 2nd October Gregory went on board, and with tearful eyes turned away his gaze from the shores it had cost him so much toforsake.

IN THE GARDEN.

ORD, the place is dark with night,
The olive trees are dim to sight;

Scarcely can I see Thee, prone,
Face to earth, outcast, alone.

I have followed Thee with fear,

Followed Thee, and found Thee-here.
Let me cry, and let me pray,
Take the cup of pain away!

Hear me pray and hear me cry
Words of Thine own agony:
Thou the Lord, and God of all;
I, so poor, so weak, so small.

Yet no coward, and if Thou
Urgest this, give courage now!
Calm the shudder at my heart,
Bid my rebel. will depart.

Let the measure be filled up,
Filled and drained the bitter cup-
Drained, O living God, for Thee,
Who hast made this mystery!

R. M.

JOHN RICHARDSON'S RELATIVES.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "NANCY HUTCH AND HER THREE TROUBLES."

PART V.

"THERE is a change, at last," pronounced Dr. Franklin, upon his first visit next day. "It is very slight indeed; but it is for the better, little as it is. You perceive it, nurse?"

"I thought I did, sir," answered the nurse. "But I didn't like to say so to the ladies for fear of being mistaken, and disappointing them."

"The breathing is softer certainly," continued the doctor, addressing Mary George, who, as she did not perceive the improvement, looked as though rather disposed to doubt it. "Perhaps less hard may be nearer to it," he concluded.

"You think he's recovering, doctor?" said Miss Travers, eagerly,

"I hope so, my dear," responded the doctor. "I have seen quite as bad cases recover. That is all I can say yet." Of ear less fine perhaps, and certainly of less sanguine disposition than the others, Mary George still (to herself) discredited what the rest of the household, once the doctor's opinion had been given, all "saw as plain as could be!" or had seen an hour ago; "though, like Mrs. Timmany, they said nothing."

"Any change since last night?" George asked, on his arrival, which this morning was somewhat later than the doctor's.

"Oh, dear, yes, sir!" answered the servant that let him in. "The doctor says so; and we all see a change."

"You have good news to-day!-haven't you?" George said cheerfully, on meeting his wife.

"Doctor Franklin says there is some slight improvement,” she replied.

"Then, if he says it, he sees it!" returned George, decisively. "There isn't a bit of humbug about Franklin."

"Who says there is?" rejoined she. "I don't see any change yet. But of course there may be."

“I'll just take a look at him myself; though I can't expect to be able to see further into a medical millstone than you," concluded George, passing on to the sick room.

"Of course you see the improvement?" Mary George asked, on his return to where he had left her.

“If it isn't fancy, I really do think I perceive the breathing to be softer."

"If-that's just it!" returned his wife.

"If he is really getting better-and I'm sure I hope he is, poor

old soul!" put in George, with genuine good feeling-"it will be all the more necessary that I should do as we settled on yesterday."

"As you settled," interposed Mary George.

"Surely you agreed it would

"If you are to go, I think the earlier you do it the better," interrupted his wife. "I'd like to know when they may be expected to walk in on us. I suppose you'll come back and let me know." . "Well, yes, if you like."

"I do like, of course; and 'tis the only thing I like about it." "They'd be sure to hear it, you know," George said, feeling it hard that a matter he had looked on as already settled beyond yea or nay, now seemed to need being argued out again.

"You know, or ought to know that's the very thing I told you," interrupted his wife. "But as you think you ought to go and tell it too, I think you should just go off and do it and have done with it."

"I'll go as soon as 'tis at all likely Ach Deane will be met in the office," George said. "I don't care to have to go up stairs and have to-to- -"["encounter" was the first word that offered; but he did not quite like to apply that to a lady, and paused to find a better]" to play politeness to his wife. She's a woman I'd never care to see much of."

And as his own wife was, in this at least, thoroughly of one mind with him, she left it to his own discretion and acquaintance, slight as it was, with his cousin Achilles' hours and customs, to strike a happy medium between late and early.

George himself indeed needed no spur. The desire to get over a disagreeable duty as soon as may be, is generally a spur of the most effectual, if not sharpest, kind with even the fair-and-easiest going people; and George Richardson was fair-and-easy going by nature; and by habit, so far as his Mary's quicker temperament did not interfere with and overbear his own. His present duty then seeming to divide itself into two, he proceeded to get over the harder half first by paying his brother John that short visit mentioned earlier in this story. And then more leisurely, and with a feeling of relief not unlike that of a mitching schoolboy who has just got over the dreaded meeting with his master, he turned his steps towards the office of Achilles Deane, who earned and spent his income (or so much of it as Mrs. Achilles' economies allowed of spending) under one roof, in a good, roomy family-house situate in the same fashionable-professional quarter with that of his brother solicitor and former master, Mr. Frazer: only a dozen or so of doors coming between.

Achilles rose promptly to receive his visitor. Indeed it seemed that, as George pushed in the door, he was in the act of rising with something as like a start as was consistent with the wellpractised composure of a man whose business in no small degree