me poor leper who had fallen helpless by the
way.

"Patience, brother," said the Prior; and bidding his companion open the
wicket, he lifted the wretched outcast from the ground and carried him
in his arms into the great hall. "Rest here a little," he said, "till
we can bring you light and fire and food."

The Prior and Bede hastened to call the brethren who had charge of
these matters, but when they returned with the other monks they found
the great hall shining with a wonderful light and filled with a
marvellous fragrance of flowers, and on the seat where the leper had
been placed there lay a golden rose, but the leper himself had vanished.

Then a great joy cast fear out of the hearts of the brotherhood, and
they laboured without ceasing in the stricken villages. Many of them
died, but it was without sorrow or repining, and the face of each was
touched with the golden rose ere he was laid to his rest.

Now the pestilence of that year was stayed by a bitter winter, and snow
lay deep even in the forest, and great blocks of ice littered the shore
of the bleak sea. And in the depth of the winter, when it drew near
the Nativity, there came riding to the monastery a stranger, who asked
to see the Prior. When the Prior looked into the man's face the tears
started and ran down his own, and he opened his arms to him, and drew
him to his breast and kissed him. For this was indeed the Lost
Brother. And when he had thus given him welcome, the Prior said: "I
ask no questions; what you can tell me you shall tell when the fitting
time comes. But this is your home to have or to leave, for you are as
free as the winds of heaven."

And the Lost Brother replied: "Wise are you no less than good. The
plague has bereft me of the child, and of the mother of the child.
More I cannot tell you now."

Thus to the Priori great happiness the companion of his youth returned
from wandering the ways of the world.

When the weeks passed, and still he remained a silent and solitary
stranger, the religious spoke sharply among themselves of the presence
of one who had broken vows and revelled in the joys of life, and had
been received without censure or reproof. Then the Prior, wrathful now
even on account of his gentleness, rebuked them once again: "O eyes of
stone and hearts of water, are you so slow to learn? Have you who
sheltered the wild creatures no thought for this man of much sorrow?
Have you who buried the dead no prayer a