t in the
place, and Rheinfrid's heart beat quickly, for he knew the pillars and
vaulted roofs and walls of this undercroft.

"Here you may rest peacefully and sleep well," said the urchin; "no one
will venture here to disturb your slumber."

"Sorrow be far from thee, little son," said Rheinfrid, speaking he
perceived that it was the Child, and that the Child's head was crowned
with roses and that he carried a rose in his hand.

Then the aged monk sank on the cold stones of his old minster, faint
and happy, for he knew now that he had finished his journey. But the
Child touched Rheinfrid's brow with the rose he carried, and the old
man fell asleep, and all the crypt was dark.

Lighting the Lamps

Now that it was the cool of the day (when God walked in Paradise), and
the straggling leaves of the limes were swaying in the fresh stream of
the breeze, and the book was finished--this very book--and at last,
after many busy evenings I was free to do as I pleased, W. V. and I
slipped away on a quiet stroll before bedtime.

It was really very late for a little girl--nearly nine o'clock; but
when one _is_ a little girl a walk between sunset and dark is like a
ramble in fairyland; and after the heat of the day the air was sweet
and pleasant, and in the west there still lingered a beautiful
afterglow.

We went a little way in the direction of the high trees of Caen Wood,
where, you know, William the Conqueror had a hunting lodge; and as we
passed under the green fringes of the rowans and the birches which
overhung the pathway, it was delightful to think that perchance over
this very ground on which we were walking the burly Master of England
may have galloped in chase of the tall deer.

"He loved them as if he were their father," said W. V., glancing up at
me with a laugh. "My history book says that. But it wasn't very nice
to kill them if he loved them, was it, father?"

We turned down the new road they are making. It runs quite into the
fields for some distance, and then goes sharp to the right. A pleasant
smell of hay was blowing up the road, and when we reached the angle we
saw two old stacks and the beginning of a new one; and the next field
had been mown and was dotted with haycocks.

On the half-finished road a steam roller stood, with its tarpaulin
drawn over it for the night. In the field, along the wooden fence,
some loads of dross had been shot between the haycocks; lengths of sod
had been stripp