ing with his heels the vicious _burro_ on which he
followed them, while he held up some article of clothing, and shouted
after them at the top of his voice.

They stopped for him to come up, and he handed to Lady Mabel a rich
shawl, which she had left behind in her bed-room, and a scrap of dingy
white paper. Refusing any reward for his trouble and honesty, he at
once took leave and turned back, the ass showing a more willing spirit
on his homeward path.

After trying in vain to decipher the scroll, Lady Mabel handed it to
L'Isle. "_Cito, tute, jucunde peregrineris_." "Swift, safe and
pleasant may your journey be," said L'Isle, translating it. "This is,
doubtless, from the young friar. He is anxious to show you at once his
scholarship and his good-will. We must not find fault with his Latin,
which is capital--for a friar!"

"Give it to me. I will keep it as a talisman of safety, and as a
memorial of our friar. Poor fellow!" continued Lady Mabel, "I suppose
the best wish I can return him is, that enthusiasm may carry him, in
sincerity and purity, through the path others have chosen for him."

"He is an impudent fellow!" growled out old Moodie. "You set too great
store, my lady, by this young vagabond!"

"Vagabond!" she exclaimed, with a look and tone of grave rebuke, "I am
afraid, Moodie, if you had met St. Paul wandering through Macedonia
without staff or scrip, or the cloak he left behind at Troas, you
would have found no better title for him."

"Is this man like St. Paul?" asked Moodie, startled at the profane
supposition.

"I do not say so. But the whole order of friars, renouncing worldly
objects, devote themselves to the imitation of the seventy disciples
in Scripture, who were sent out by two and two to evangelize the
Jews."

"I never expected, my lady, to hear you liken these lazy monks to our
Lord's disciples."

"They are not monks, but friars," said Lady Mabel quietly, "and,
without answering for their practice, I cannot but approve of what
they profess. They do not shut themselves up from the world, like the
monks, under pretence of escaping contamination, but devote themselves
to the mission of traveling about in apostolic poverty from house to
house, and, by prayer and preaching, by inculcating charity, and
receiving alms, sow every where the seeds of the faith they profess."

"The words old Chaucer puts into the mouth of his friar," said L'Isle,
"well express the objects of the order:

"In s