ic agriculture, as drainers of fens
and morasses, as clearers of forests, as makers of roads, as tillers of
the reclaimed soil, as architects of durable and even stately buildings,
as exhibiting a visible type of orderly government, as establishing the
superiority of peace over war as the normal condition of life, as
students in the library which the rule set up in every monastery, as the
masters in schools open not merely to their own postulants but to the
children of secular families also, that they won their high place in
history as benefactors of mankind."

* * * * *

"Oh, Father Ambrose," cried the girl, when at last he entered her
presence, "I watched your approach from afar off. You walked with
halting step, and shoulders increasingly bowed. You are wearing yourself
out in my service, and that I cannot permit. You return this evening a
tired man."

"Not physically tired," replied the monk, with a smile. "My head is
bowed with meditation and prayer, rather than with fatigue. Indeed, it
is others who do the harassing manual labor, while I simply direct and
instruct. Sometimes I think I am an encumberer in the vineyard, lazily
using brain instead of hand."

"Nonsense!" cried the girl, "the vineyard would be but a barren
plantation without you; and speaking of it reminds me that I have poured
out, with my own hand, a tankard of the choicest, oldest wine in our
cellars, which I allow no one but yourself to taste. Sit down, I beg of
you, and drink."

The wise old man smiled, wondering what innocent trap was being set for
him. He raised the tankard to his lips, but merely indulged in one sip
of the delectable beverage. Then he seated himself, and looked at the
girl, still smiling. She went on speaking rapidly, a delicate flush
warming her fair cheeks.

"Father, you are the most patient and indefatigable of agriculturists,
sparing neither yourself nor others, but there is danger that you grow
bucolic through overlong absence from the great affairs of this world."

"What can be greater, my child, than increasing the productiveness of
the land; than training men to supply all their needs from the fruitful
earth?"

"True, true," admitted the girl, her eyes sparkling with eagerness, "but
to persist overlong even in well-doing becomes ultimately tedious. If
the laborer is worthy of his hire, so, too, is the master. You should
take a change, and as I know your fondness for travel, I hav