strangers that I was not a pedlar after all, I found no difficulty as to
my reception. Modestine was led away by a layman to the stables, and I
and my pack were received into Our Lady of the Snows.



THE MONKS


Father Michael, a pleasant, fresh-faced, smiling man, perhaps of thirty-
five, took me to the pantry, and gave me a glass of liqueur to stay me
until dinner. We had some talk, or rather I should say he listened to my
prattle indulgently enough, but with an abstracted air, like a spirit
with a thing of clay. And truly, when I remember that I descanted
principally on my appetite, and that it must have been by that time more
than eighteen hours since Father Michael had so much as broken bread, I
can well understand that he would find an earthly savour in my
conversation. But his manner, though superior, was exquisitely gracious;
and I find I have a lurking curiosity as to Father Michael's past.

The whet administered, I was left alone for a little in the monastery
garden. This is no more than the main court, laid out in sandy paths and
beds of parti-coloured dahlias, and with a fountain and a black statue of
the Virgin in the centre. The buildings stand around it four-square,
bleak, as yet unseasoned by the years and weather, and with no other
features than a belfry and a pair of slated gables. Brothers in white,
brothers in brown, passed silently along the sanded alleys; and when I
first came out, three hooded monks were kneeling on the terrace at their
prayers. A naked hill commands the monastery upon one side, and the wood
commands it on the other. It lies exposed to wind; the snow falls off