was there betwixt
us. And yet"--his voice altered suddenly--"I knew what that was too--
once."

"And she mocked thee, trow?" asked Bertram, who expected a small
sensation novel to spring out of this avowal.

Wilfred worked in silence for a minute. Then he said in a low tone,
"Forty years' violets have freshened and faded on her grave; nor one of
all of them more fair ne sweet than she." But there was something in
his manner which said, "Question me no further." And, curious as
Bertram was, he obeyed the tacit request.

"And what stood next in thy life, Father?"

"This, lad," said the monk, touching his cowl.

Bertram did not consider this by any means satisfactory.

"Well! All said, Father Wilfred, we come back to the first matter.
What wouldst thou do an' thou wert I?"

"Soothly, that wis I not," said the illuminator rather drily. "What
thou shouldst do an' thou wert I, might be easier gear."

"Well--and that were?"

"To set claws unto this griffin."

"Now, Father Wilfred! My work is not to paint griffins."

"What thy work is, do," replied the monk sententiously.

"But 'tis sheer idlesse! 'Tis not work at all. It is but to wait till
I am called to work."

"The waiting is harder than the work," replied Wilfred, again laying
down his pen. "If thou be well assured that waiting is thy work, wit
thou that 'tis matter worthy of the wits of angels, for there is no work
harder than to wait for God."

"But 'tis not _work_, Father!"

"If thou so think, thou art not yet master of that art."

"Of what art?"

"Waiting." Wilfred's pen pursued its journey for a moment before he
added, "Lad, this that I am on is but play and revelry. But the lack
thereof--the time passed in awaiting till the lad that enscribeth the
text have fresh parchment ready--that is work."

Bertram frowned and pursed his lips as if he could not see it.

"For forty years, Bertram, all the wisdom of the wisest nation in the
world was sometime taught unto a man named Moyses. His work was to lead
the chosen folk of God into the land that God should give them. But at
the end of that forty years, he was but half learned. So for other
forty years, he was sent into a wilderness for to keep sheep."

"Why, he were past work then!"

"Nay, he was but then ready for it."

"And did he lead the folk after all?"

"He did so."

"And what gave him our Lord for guerdon, when his toil was done?"

"Was the work no guerdon?" responded