the actual birth of the Virgin, so I suppose they had been in
readiness, and were brought in from an adjoining room as soon as the
baby had been born. A lady on her left is bringing in some more
flowers, which St. Anne is receiving with a smile and most gracious
gesture of the hands. The first thing she asked for, when the birth
was over, was for her three silver hearts. These were immediately
brought to her, and she has got them all on, tied round her neck
with a piece of blue silk ribbon.

Dear mamma has come. We felt sure she would, and that any little
misunderstandings between her and Joachim would ere long be
forgotten and forgiven. They are both so good and sensible if they
would only understand one another. At any rate, here she is, in
high state at the right hand of the bed. She is dressed in black,
for she has lost her husband some few years previously, but I do not
believe a smarter, sprier old lady for her years could be found in
Palestine, nor yet that either Giovanni d'Enrico or Giacomo Ferro
could have conceived or executed such a character. The sacristan
wanted to have it that she was not a woman at all, but was a
portrait of St. Joachim, the Virgin's father. "Sembra una donna,"
he pleaded more than once, "ma non e donna." Surely, however, in
works of art even more than in other things, there is no "is" but
seeming, and if a figure seems female it must be taken as such.
Besides, I asked one of the leading doctors at Varallo whether the
figure was man or woman. He said it was evident I was not married,
for that if I had been I should have seen at once that she was not
only a woman but a mother-in-law of the first magnitude, or, as he
called it, "una suocera tremenda," and this without knowing that I
wanted her to be a mother-in-law myself. Unfortunately she had no
real drapery, so I could not settle the question as my friend Mr. H.