m for two, it is such a wee chapel. Several impatient people in
pyjamas think it would be fun to start jazzing in the courtyard, till
Akela warns them, "No story if you start ragging."

Soon all prayers are said, and the people in the Coach-house are in bed,
and ready to "invite" the Stable. The Stable having been duly invited,
its eight occupants come in, and each finds a place on a palliasse. It
is a warm, still night. The great doors of the Coach-house stand wide
open. The stars are out thick by this time. Little black bats flit and
swoop about in the darkness. If you keep very still you can just hear
the gentle "hshshsh, hshshsh" of the sea. The candle flickers as the
night gives a little sigh. A few Cubs are rolling about on their straw
beds. "Shut up, all!" commands an imperious Sixer. "Now, miss, go
ahead."

Akela is sitting on a palliasse already occupied by two people. Silence
reigns, for these Cubs belong to a story-telling Pack, and it is almost
the only time they are ever quite quiet. "Well," begins Akela, "many
hundreds of years ago there lived a boy----"

THE STORY OF ST. BENEDICT.

Many hundreds of years ago there lived a boy called Benedict. He lived
in Italy. His father and mother were rich people, and lived in a
beautiful house on a beautiful estate. St. Benedict and his twin sister
must have been very happy playing among the olive-trees and vines of
sunny Italy, where the sky is nearly always blue, and where there are
all sorts of lovely wild-flowers and fruits we don't get in England, and
lizards and butterflies and all sorts of things.

St. Benedict was brought up a good Christian, though lots of the people
round were still pagans in those days. There were terrible wars and
troubles going on in Italy and in all the countries round, like there
have been in our days. But the boy Benedict in his happy home knew
little of these. Little did he know that the beautiful fields of Italy
were being left to be overgrown with weeds and over-run with wild
beasts; that the children had never heard of God; that the poor were
dying of starvation. To him the world was a happy place, where one
played and had a good time, and where people loved Christ and obeyed His
words. But some day he was to learn the truth. For God was going to use
the boy Benedict to do more than any _one_ man has ever done to
_civilize_ the world. This story I'm telling you is the story of how St.
Benedict discovered all God's great plan