In the season of our life;
There are wild, despairing moments,
There are hours of mental strife;
There are times of stony anguish,
When the tears refuse to fall;
But the waiting time, my brothers,
Is the hardest time of all."
_Sarah Doudney_.

Beside a Gothic window, and under a groined stone roof, that afternoon
sat a monk at his work. The work was illumination. The room was bare
of all kinds of furniture, with the exception of a wooden erection which
was chair and desk in one. On the desk lay a large square piece of
parchment, a future leaf of a book, in which the text was already
written, but the illuminated border was not yet begun. There was a pen
in the monk's hand, with which he was about to execute the outline; but
the pen was dry, and the old man's eyes were fixed dreamily upon the
landscape without.

"`In wisdom hast Thou made them all,'" he murmured half audibly. "O
Lord, `the earth is full of Thy riches!'"

It was early morning, for the illuminator was at work betimes. From a
little cottage visible across the green, he saw a peasant go forth to
his daily work, his wife watching him a moment from the door of the hut,
and two little children calling to him lovingly to come back soon.

"And life also is full of Thy riches," whispered the solitary monk.
"This poor hind hath none other riches than what Thine hand hath given
him. Is he in truth the poorer for it? We live on Thy daily bounty
even more than he; for like Thy lilies, we toil not, neither do we spin.
Yet Thou hast given to him, as sweetening to his toil, solace denied by
Thy holy will to us. Wherefore denied to us? Because we are set apart
for Thee. So were Thy priests of old, in Thy Temple at Jerusalem: yet
it was not denied to them. Why should we love Thee less for loving
little children?"

The monk turned back abruptly to his work.

"Ah me! these be problems beyond mine art. And whatso be the solving of
the general matter, I have no doubt as to Thy will _for me_. The joys
of earth be not for me; but Thou art my portion, O Lord! And I am
content--ay, satisfied abundantly. Maybe, on the golden hills of the
_Urbs Beata_, we shall find joys far passing the sweetest here, kept for
that undefouled company which shall sue the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.
And could any joy pass that?"

The venerable head was bent over the parchment, upon which the grotesque
outline of a griffin began to grow, twisted round a very co