in,
whom he had chosen for his patroness, and one of his most ardent wishes
was that he might some day visit the church beyond Tiber, and kneel by
the shrine which contained her precious relics. In summer the red
roses, in autumn the bright apples on the tree, reminded him of her; in
the spring he thought of her youth and beauty joyously surrendered to
Christ, and the snow in winter spoke to him of her spotless innocence.
Thus through the round of the year the remembrance of her was present
about him in fair suggestions; and indeed had there been any lack of
these every gift of God would have recalled her to his mind, for was
not that--"the gift of God"--her name?

Notwithstanding his youth, Waldo was ripe in learning, well skilled in
Latin and Greek, and so gifted beyond measure in poetry and music that
people said he had heard the singing of Angels and had brought the echo
of it to the earth. His hymns and sacred songs were known and loved
all through the German land, and far beyond. The children sang them in
the processions on the high feast days, the peasants sang them at their
work in house or field, travellers sang them as they journeyed over the
long heaths and through the mountain-forests, fishers and raftsmen sang
them on the rivers. He composed the Song of the Sickle which cuts at a
stroke the corn in its ripeness and the wild flower in its bloom, and
the Song of the Mill-wheel, with its long creak and quick clap, and the
melodious rush of water from the buckets of the wheel, and many another
which it would take long to tell of; but that which to himself was
sweetest and dearest was Golden Apples and Roses Red, the song in which
he told the legend of St. Dorothea his patroness.

Now when Waldo was in the six-and-thirtieth year of his age he was
smitten with leprosy; and when it was found that neither the relics of
the saints, nor the prayers of holy men, nor the skill of the physician
availed to cure him, but that it was God's will he should endure to the
end, the Prior entreated him to surrender himself to that blessed will,
and to go forth courageously to the new life of isolation which awaited
him. For in those days it was not lawful that a leper should abide in
the companionship of men, and he was set apart lest his malady should
bring others to a misery like his own.

Deep was the grief of the brethren of Three Fountains when they were
summoned to attend the sacred office of demission which was t