bird
and at the colors in the sky, he wondered yet more when he found
himself again in the place where he had lived for many years. For
many things about the place were changed, and the men in it were all
changed. There was not one face among them that he knew. One of the
brothers saw him and came toward him, and he said: 'Brother, why have
all these changes been made here since this morning? And who are all
these whom I do not know? I scarcely know my own monastery.'

"And the other answered: 'Who are you that ask this, and why do you
come here? For you wear the dress of our order, but you are a
stranger. You speak as if you knew the place, yet I myself have lived
here for fifty years and I have never seen you before.'

"Then the monk told his name and told how he had been at mass in the
chapel in the morning and had then gone into the garden to read. And
he told how he had read in the Psalms, 'A thousand years in thy sight
are as yesterday, which is past,' and how, while he was thinking of
these words, he had heard the bird singing. He told how he had
followed the bird, till he saw that night was coming, and then had
come back to the monastery.

"And the other said: 'I remember now that when I first came into this
place they told me of a legend that a monk of your name had gone out
of this monastery a hundred and fifty years before, and had never come
back and had never been heard of again. And now, counting my own
fifty years here, that must have been two hundred years ago.'

"Then the monk said: 'God has given me such happiness as He gives to
few until they are with Him in Heaven, for these two hundred years
have seemed to me to be only a part of a day. Now hear my confession,
for I know that I soon shall die.'

"So the other monk heard his confession, and before midnight he died.
And this was the way that God had chosen to show him the meaning of
His word."

It was a pretty story, but Kathleen understood no more than before.
"No," said her grandmother, "you cannot understand, and I cannot. We
live here such a little while and we are so shut in by time, that we
cannot understand how it is with those who live always. But we shall
understand when the right time comes, and then we shall wonder how we
could ever wonder. And I will tell you another story about it, not to
make you understand, but to show you how it is.

"Long ago Finn McCool was the great champion of Ireland. He had many
warriors, who were called