felt for him?

Nay, let be; he loved them all. The Monastery was his home, the
Prior his father, the monks his brethren; why heed the wild words
of the witch in the forest? And yet what was it she had said?
"For me the wide world, hunger, and love--love--love!"

He wandered in the Monastery garden and was troubled by its
beauties. Two sulphur butterflies sported around the tall white
lilies at the farmery door. Did they love?

He watched the sparrows at their second nesting, full of business
and cheerful bickerings. Did they love?

SHE had said the answer was writ large for him to see: he wandered
staring, wide-eyed but sightless.

At last in his sore distress he turned to the Prior, as the ship-
wrecked mariner turns to the sea-girt rock that towers serene and
unhurt above the devouring waves.

The Prior heard him patiently, with here and there a shrewd
question. When the halting tale was told he mused awhile, his
stern blue eyes grew tender, and a little smile troubled the firm
line of his mouth.

"My son," he said at length, "thou art in the wrong school;
nursery, was it the maid said? A shrewd lass and welcome to the
hen. Thou art a limner at heart--Brother Bernard tells of thy
wondrous skill with the brush--and to be limner thou must learn to