perience in his own body the wounds of Christ, the pierced hands and
feet, and the thrust of the lance in his side, Clement wept aloud. He
repeated his vow to become a Franciscan monk, and called upon Ivo to do
the same, so that, according to the rules of the Order, they might walk
about the world together, courting tortures and troubles and living
upon alms.

With insatiable thirst Clement drank of the streams of mysticism and
hurried his friend along with him.

12.
THE COLLEGE CHAP.

In the holidays Ivo was again powerfully attracted to the realities of
life. It was not so easy then to exclude the doings of the outer world,
and wrap oneself up into self-suggested thoughts and feelings. Such
exaltations are, in fact, only feasible outside of the family circle,
and therefore outside of the sphere of real life. Scarcely had he
returned to the village, when the family ties once more asserted their
claims, and the manifold and interlaced fates and fortunes of the
villagers forced themselves upon his interest and sympathy. He knew
what lived and moved behind all their walls. He awoke to his former
life as from a dream.

One evening he met Constantine standing before his house, chewing a
straw and looking sullen.

"What's the matter?" asked Ivo.

"Pshaw! Nothing you can do any good to."

"Well, you'd better tell me."

"You've no taste for the world, and can't understand it. Whitsuntide is
almost come, and then there's the bel-wether dance, and I haven't a
sweetheart. I might have had one, but I was too saucy; and yet I don't
want any other, and I'd be unconscionably mad if she were to take up
with some one else. Such a bel-wether dance as this will be I would'nt
give a copper for."

"Who is the proud beauty?"

"You know her well enough: Emmerence?"

Ivo barely repressed a start. He asked, quickly,--

"Have you gone with her long?"

"Why, that's what I'm telling you. She won't look at me. She's just as
prudish and coy as a Diana."

"Do you mean to act fairly by her, and marry her?"

"What? Fairly? Of course. But I can't talk about marrying yet. Don't
you know the old student-song?--

"I will love thee, I will love thee;
But to marry, but to marry,
Is far, far, far, far above me."

"Then I must agree with Emmerence."

"Fiddle! No offence, but you don't know any thing about it. These girls
must be conten