ii2 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



hangs in the Imperial Gallery of Vienna. It is 

 another presentation of that ever familiar theme, 

 the birth of the Blessed Virgin. Saint Ann sits 

 upright on her bed. Saint Joachim enters the door. 

 The spacious room is full of attendants, engaged in 

 waiting on their mistress, in airing the baby linen, 

 in washing and admiring the infant. Everybody is 

 busy and excited. Everybody, save Saint Ann, is 

 standing, or kneeling on the floor. There is, in 

 fact, but one chair in the room. On that chair is 

 a cushion, and on that cushion sleeps, serene and 

 undisturbed, a cat. 



It is to be regretted that Titian and Velasquez 

 and Murillo gave their manifest preference to dogs. 

 Titian's lap-dogs are the most engaging in art ; and 

 the little white woolly creatures — like toy lambs — 

 that Murillo painted, beguile our souls with their 

 air of wistful and sympathetic intelligence. Who 

 does not remember — and remembering, love — the 

 poor little beast in the Louvre, who holds up one 

 paw beseechingly, and begs for a peep at the new- 

 born Virgin ? A small, fat, azure-winged angel, 

 carrying a basket of baby linen, and bursting with 

 pride over the importance of his task, decides upon 

 his own authority that no dogs shall be permitted 

 to enter, and huffs the petitioner away. Velasquez, 

 though he painted a fine puss in " Las Hilanderas," 

 ignored the race as a rule. His partiality was for 



