cloister, he at Oxford, and Eleanor in the Benedictine House of
which her aunt was Prioress.

Hilarius had written of his saintly mistress to Prior Stephen just
as he had written of the wondrous beauty of St Peter's Abbey:
"With all its straight, slender, upstanding pillars, methinks 'tis
like the forest at home" (forgetting that his more intimate
knowledge of the forest partook of the nature of sin). "The Lady
Eleanor, my honoured mistress," he wrote, "is a most saintly and
devout maiden, full of heavenly lore, and caring nought for the
things of this world;" and he added, "'tis beautiful to see such
devotion where for the most part are sinful and light-minded
persons."

The Prior laid the script aside with a smile and a sigh; and when
Brother Bernard asked news of the lad, answered a little sadly,
"Nay, Brother, he still sleeps;" and indeed there seemed no waking
him to a world of men--living, striving, sorely-tried men.

He dwelt in a land of his own making--a land of colour and light
and shadow in which much that he saw played a part; only the
gorgeous pageants turned to hosts of triumphant saints heralded by
angels; while the knights at a tourney in their brave armour
pictured St George, St Michael, or St Martin in his dreams.

It was a limner he longed to be, far away from the stir and stress,
not a page attending a great lady to the Court functions. He
yearned ever after the Scriptorium, with its busied monks and
stores of colour and gold. It lay but a stone's throw away behind
the jealous Monastery walls, but it was no part of Prior Stephen's