These sentinels of the dead are relieved in turn until the funeral rites take place. Then the body of the departed brother is carried. to the grave. He is buried without coffin or shroud, being interred in the full habit of the order. A grave is always kept partly dug, so as to warn others of the uncertainty of life, a memento mori suggestive of the old Egyptian custom. In this secluded little cemetery is the tomb of a Benedictine monk who died at the age of eighty-seven, sixty years of which had been spent in the order, a fact of which messieurs the vegetarians may take

note.

One more sight for the curious. Connected with the monastery is the Colony,' a reformatory for boys, and until recently doing an active work, morally, socially, and intellectually. The inmates were drawn from unhealthy homes, vicious haunts, and idle habits to this pure mountain atmosphere, and received a practical education and were taught a useful trade by the monks. Owing, however, to a difficulty in meeting the Government requirements, the brothers have been obliged to give up this establishment, in which for a number of years some two hundred lads, the waifs and strays of the Roman Catholic population of large towns, have been cared for and instructed. The Government required the sum of four thousand pounds expended in structural alterations on the building. The monks, however, are poor. They could not raise so large a sum; and the boys of the Colony have, perforce, been turned upon the evil chances of the world again. What the structural improvements demand

now in a dilemma as to how this range of buildings is to be utilised. If buildings so large and substantial were situated near to a large centre of population, there would be no delay in letting them. In their present isolated position, their very size increases the difficulty.

This is the difficulty which the venerable and venerated Brother Ignatius discusses with us at the gate, as we stretch out our hands in farewell. He speaks regretfully over the closed Colony, for he was its principal director, and there had grown up a great regard between the lads and their old guide, philosopher, and friend.' The parting between them was not made without a pang. We are thus talking, when, lo! a silvery peal from the abbey tower, a few hundred yards distant, steals across the evening air, and tells that compline has commenced. And so Brother Ignatius leaves us, to join in the sacred Salve Regina. And we pass out into the forest, with the rocky ridges now darkening in the saffron light of the sunset. And pleasant is the saunter back, with the contemplative cigar, in this clear, tranquil, twilight hour.

EDWARD BRADBURY.