Page:Magdalen by J S Machar.pdf/106

 Through a beautiful grove of lindens and oaks, whose branches meet above and form a fantastie, rustling vault, one passes to a neighboring town. Every pious soul in Bohemis is thrilled by its name: it is a holy place for pilgrims, and has a temple, the sacred image of which, they say, has wrought thousands of miracles. To this day a chapter of stout priests grows fat upon the visitors. Hundreds of these holy men sit the whole autumn and winter in low huts, like spiders in their hiding places; but when in summer the banners of the country people begin to be unfurled, and songs of the Virgin Mary fill the air, and pious women, sturdy lads, and buxom maidens hasten from all parts of our land to this place,—they come forth with their canvas booths, and catch the pious souls, and suck them dry.

Those are the places to which the old lady took Lucy the day after their arrival.

Reader, have you ever seen the life in an ant hill? These Philistine insects live in an