ical-looking person than his friend, the good-
natured Augustinian. After commending them to his care, and partaking
of a drink of mead, the monk of Silkstede took leave of the youths, with
a hearty blessing and advice to husband their few crowns, not to tell
every one of their tokens, and to follow the counsel of the Warden of
Saint Elizabeth's, assuring them that if they turned back to the Forest
they should have a welcome at Silkstede. Moreover he patted Spring
pitifully, and wished him and his master well through the journey.

Saint Elizabeth's College was a hundred years older than its neighbour
Saint Mary's, as was evident to practised eyes by its arches and
windows, but it had been so entirely eclipsed by Wykeham's foundation
that the number of priests, students, and choir-boys it was intended to
maintain, had dwindled away, so that it now contained merely the Warden,
a superannuated priest, and a couple of big lads who acted as servants.
There was an air of great quietude and coolness about the pointed arches
of its tiny cloister on that summer's day, with the old monk dozing in
his chair over the manuscript he thought he was reading, not far from
the little table where the Warden was eagerly studying Erasmus's _Praise
of Folly_. But the Birkenholts were of the age at which quiet means
dulness, at least Stephen was, and the Warden had pity both on them and
on himself; and hearing joyous shouts outside, he opened a little door
in the cloister wall, and revealed a multitude of lads with their black
gowns tucked up, "a playing at the ball"--these being the scholars of
Saint Mary's. Beckoning to a pair of elder ones, who were walking up
and down more quietly, he consigned the strangers to their care,
sweetening the introduction by an invitation to supper, for which he
would gain permission from their Warden.

One of the young Wykehamists was shy and churlish, and sheered off from
the brothers, but the other catechised them on their views of becoming
scholars in the college. He pointed out the cloister where the studies
took place in all weathers, showed them the hall, the chapel, and the
chambers, and expatiated on the chances of attaining to New College.
Being moreover a scholarly fellow, he and Ambrose fell into a discussion
over the passage of Virgil, copied out on a bit of paper, which he was
learning by heart. Some other scholars having finished their game, and
become aware of the presence of a strange do