for some years after their profession, Chris continued his work of
illumination, for which he had shown great aptitude during his year of
noviceship.

The art was beginning to disappear, since the introduction of printing
had superseded the need of manuscript, but in some Religious Houses it
was still thought a suitable exercise during the hours appointed for
manual labour.

It was soon after the beginning of the new year that Chris was entrusted
with a printed antiphonary that had its borders and initials left white;
and he carried the great loose sheets with a great deal of pride to the
little carrel or wooden stall assigned to him in the northern cloister.

It was a tiny room, scarcely six feet square, lighted by the window into
the cloister-garth, and was almost entirely filled by the chair, the
sloping desk against the wall, and the table where the pigments and
brushes lay ready to the hand. The door opened on to the cloister itself
where the professed monks were at liberty to walk, and on the opposite
side stood the broad aumbries that held the library of the house; and it
was from the books here that Chris was allowed to draw ideas for his
designs. It was a great step in that life of minute details when now for
the first time he was permitted to follow his own views, instead of
merely filling in with colour outlines already drawn for him; and he
found his scheme for the decoration a serious temptation to distraction
during the office. As he stood among the professed monks, in his own
stall at last, he found his eyes wandering away to the capitals of the
round pillars, the stone foliage and fruit that burst out of the slender
shafts, the grim heads that strained forward in mitre and crown
overhead, and even the living faces of his brethren and superiors, clear