in him to
accept the coat given to him, that he thereby earneth it of merit? Yet
this, and less than this, is all that man can do toward God."

"Are you one of the Boni-Homines?" asked Philippa suddenly.

She was beginning to recognise their doctrines now.

"The family of God are one," answered the Grey Lady, rather evasively.
"He teacheth not different things to divers of His people, though He
lead them by varying ways to the knowledge of the one truth."

"But are you one of the Boni-Homines?" Philippa repeated.

"By birth--no."

"No," echoed Philippa, "I should think not, by birth. Your accent and
your manners show you high-born; and they are low-born varlets--common
people."

"The common people," answered the Grey Lady, "are usually those who hear
Christ the most gladly. `Not many noble are called;' yet, thank God, a
few. But do you, then, count Archbishop Bradwardine, or Bishop
Grosteste, or William de Edingdon, Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor
of England,--among the common people?"

"They were not among _them_?" exclaimed Philippa in contemptuous
surprise.

"Trust me, but they were,--two of them at least; and the third preached
their doctrines, though he went not out from them."

"I could not have believed it!"

"`The wind bloweth where it listeth,'" said the Grey Lady, softly: but
she hardly spoke to her visitor.

Philippa rose. "I thank you for your counsel," she said.

"And you mean, _not_ to follow it?" was the gentle response.

"I do not know what I mean to do," she said honestly. "I want to do
right; but I cannot believe it right to deny the grace of condignity.
It is so blessed a doctrine! How else shall men merit the favour of
God? And I do not perceive, by your view, how men approach God at all."

"By God approaching them," said the eremitess. "`Whosoever will, let
him take the Water of Life freely.' But God provideth the water; man
only receiveth it; and the will to receive it is of God, not of man's
own deed and effort. `It is God that worketh in us.' Salvation is `not
of works, lest any man should boast.'"

"That is not the doctrine of holy Church," answered Philippa, somewhat
offended.

"It is the doctrine of Saint Paul," was the quiet rejoinder, "for the
words I have just spoken are not mine, but his."

"Are you certain of that, Mother?"

"Quite certain."

"Who told you them?"

The Grey Lady turned, and took from a rough shelf or ledge, scooped out
in the r