way. Even if I learnt cookery and let down my skirts, who's going to
engage me for a cook-general at _my_ time of life?"

"Nobody, please God," answered Brother Copas, copying her
seriousness. "Did I not tell you I have been thinking about all
this? If you must know, I have talked it over with the Master . . .
and the long and short of it is that, if or when the time should
come, I can step in and make a claim for you as your only known
guardian. My dear child, St. Hospital will not let you go."

For a moment Corona tried to speak, but could not. She sat with her
palms laid on her lap, and stared at the blurred outline of the
chalk-hills--blurred by the mist in her eyes. Two great tears welled
and splashed down on the back of her hand.

"The years and years," she murmured, "before I can begin to pay it
back!"

"Nay"--Brother Copas set down his half-filled glass, took the hand
and gently wiped it with the sleeve of his frayed gown; and so held
it, smoothing it while he spoke, as though the tear had hurt it--"it
is we who are repaying you. Shall I tell you what I told the
Master? 'Master,' I said, 'all we Brethren, ever since I can
remember, have been wearing gowns as more or less conscious humbugs.
Christ taught that poverty was noble, and such a gospel might be
accepted by the East. It might persevere along the Mediterranean
coast, and survive what St. Paul did to Christianity to make
Christianity popular. It might reach Italy and flame up in a crazed
good soul like the soul of St. Francis. It might creep along as a
pious opinion, and even reach England, to be acknowledged on a king's
or a rowdy's death-bed--and Alberic de Blanchminster,' said I,
'(saving your presence, sir) was a rowdy robber who, being afraid
when it came to dying, caught at the Christian precept he has most
neglected, as being therefore in all probability the decentest.
But no Englishman, not being on his death-bed, ever believed it:
and we knew better--until this child came along and taught us.
The Brethren's livery has always been popular enough in the streets
of Merchester: but she--she taught us (God bless her) that it can be
honoured for its own sake; that it is noble and, best of all, that
its _noblesse oblige_' . . . Ah, little maid, you do not guess your
strength!"

Corona understood very little of all this. But she understood that
Uncle Copas loved her, and was uttering these whimsies to cover up
the love he revealed. Sh