g the little boy freedom to turn
the leaves as he chose.

Always it was one picture that little Otto sought; the Christ Child in
the manger, with the Virgin, St. Joseph, the Shepherds, and the Kine.
And as he would hang breathlessly gazing and gazing upon it, the old
Abbot would sit watching him with a faint, half-sad smile flickering
around his thin lips and his pale, narrow face.

It was a pleasant, peaceful life, but by-and-by the end came. Otto was
now nearly twelve years old.

One bright, clear day, near the hour of noon, little Otto heard the
porter's bell sounding below in the court-yard--dong! dong! Brother
Emmanuel had been appointed as the boy's instructor, and just then Otto
was conning his lessons in the good monk's cell. Nevertheless, at the
sound of the bell he pricked up his ears and listened, for a visitor was
a strange matter in that out-of-the-way place, and he wondered who it
could be. So, while his wits wandered his lessons lagged.

"Postera Phoeba lustrabat lampade terras," continued Brother Emmanuel,
inexorably running his horny finger-nail beneath the line, "humentemque
Aurora polo dimoverat umbram--" the lesson dragged along.

Just then a sandaled footstep sounded without, in the stone corridor,
and a light tap fell upon Brother Emmanuel's door. It was Brother
Ignatius, and the Abbot wished little Otto to come to the refectory.

As they crossed the court-yard Otto stared to see a group of mail-clad
men-at-arms, some sitting upon their horses, some standing by the
saddle-bow. "Yonder is the young baron," he heard one of them say in a
gruff voice, and thereupon all turned and stared at him.

A stranger was in the refectory, standing beside the good old Abbot,
while food and wine were being brought and set upon the table for his
refreshment; a great, tall, broad-shouldered man, beside whom the Abbot
looked thinner and slighter than ever.

The stranger was clad all in polished and gleaming armor, of plate and
chain, over which was drawn a loose robe of gray woollen stuff, reaching
to the knees and bound about the waist by a broad leathern sword-belt.
Upon his arm he carried a great helmet which he had just removed from
his head. His face was weather-beaten and rugged, and on lip and chin
was a wiry, bristling beard; once red, now frosted with white.

Brother Ignatius had bidden Otto to enter, and had then closed the door
behind him; and now, as the lad walked slowly up the long room, he gaze