It seems to me, moreover, that fairies have changed their practice now in the matter of sleeping beauties, much as shopkeepers have done in Regent Street.  Formerly the shopkeeper used to shut up his goods behind strong shutters, so that no one might see them after closing hours.  Now he leaves everything open to the eye and turns the gas on.  So the fairies, who used to lock up their sleeping beauties in impenetrable thickets, now leave them in the most public places they can find, as knowing that they will there most certainly escape notice.  Look at De Hooghe; look at The Pilgrim’s Progress, or even Shakespeare himself—­how long they slept unawakened, though they were in broad daylight and on the public thoroughfares all the time.  Look at Tabachetti, and the masterpieces he left at Varallo.  His figures there are exposed to the gaze of every passer-by; yet who heeds them?  Who, save a very few, even know of their existence?  Look again at Gaudenzio Ferrari, or the “Danse des Paysans,” by Holbein, to which I ventured to call attention in the Universal Review.  No, no; if a thing be in Central Africa, it is the glory of this age to find it out; so the fairies think it safer to conceal their proteges under a show of openness; for the schoolmaster is much abroad, and there is no hedge so thick or so thorny as the dulness of culture.

It may be, again, that ever so many years hence, when Mr. Darwin’s earth-worms shall have buried Oropa hundreds of feet deep, someone sinking a well or making a railway-cutting will unearth these chapels, and will believe them to have been houses, and to contain the exuviae of the living forms that tenanted them.  In the meantime, however, let us return to a consideration of the chapel as it may now be seen by anyone who cares to pass that way.

The work consists of about forty figures in all, not counting Cupids, and is divided into four main divisions.  First, there is the large public sitting-room or drawing-room of the College, where the elder young ladies are engaged in various elegant employments.  Three, at a table to the left, are making a mitre for the Bishop, as may be seen from the model on the table.  Some are merely spinning or about to spin.  One young lady, sitting rather apart from the others, is doing an elaborate piece of needlework at a tambour-frame near the window; others are making lace or slippers, probably for the new curate; another is struggling with a letter, or perhaps a theme, which seems to be giving her a good deal of trouble, but which, when done, will, I am sure, be beautiful.  One dear little girl is simply reading Paul and Virginia underneath the window, and is so concealed that I hardly think she can be seen from the outside at all, though from inside she is delightful; it was with great regret that I could not get her into any photograph.  One most amiable young woman has got a child’s head on her lap, the child having played itself to sleep.  All are industriously and agreeably employed