d
with round, wondering blue eyes at the stranger.

"Dost know who I am, Otto? said the mail-clad knight, in a deep,
growling voice.

"Methinks you are my father, sir," said Otto.

"Aye, thou art right," said Baron Conrad, "and I am glad to see that
these milk-churning monks have not allowed thee to forget me, and who
thou art thyself."

"An' it please you," said Otto, "no one churneth milk here but
Brother Fritz; we be makers of wine and not makers of butter, at St.
Michaelsburg."

Baron Conrad broke into a great, loud laugh, but Abbot Otto's sad and
thoughtful face lit up with no shadow of an answering smile.

"Conrad," said he, turning to the other, "again let me urge thee; do
not take the child hence, his life can never be your life, for he is not
fitted for it. I had thought," said he, after a moment's pause, "I had
thought that thou hadst meant to consecrate him--this motherless one--to
the care of the Universal Mother Church."

"So!" said the Baron, "thou hadst thought that, hadst thou? Thou hadst
thought that I had intended to deliver over this boy, the last of the
Vuelphs, to the arms of the Church? What then was to become of our name
and the glory of our race if it was to end with him in a monastery? No,
Drachenhausen is the home of the Vuelphs, and there the last of the race
shall live as his sires have lived before him, holding to his rights by
the power and the might of his right hand."

The Abbot turned and looked at the boy, who was gaping in simple
wide-eyed wonderment from one to the other as they spoke.

"And dost thou think, Conrad," said the old man, in his gentle, patient
voice, "that that poor child can maintain his rights by the strength of
his right hand?"

The Baron's look followed the Abbot's, and he said nothing.

In the few seconds of silence that followed, little Otto, in his simple
mind, was wondering what all this talk portended. Why had his father
come hither to St. Michaelsburg, lighting up the dim silence of the
monastery with the flash and ring of his polished armor? Why had he
talked about churning butter but now, when all the world knew that the
monks of St. Michaelsburg made wine.

It was Baron Conrad's deep voice that broke the little pause of silence.

"If you have made a milkmaid of the boy," he burst out at last, "I thank
the dear heaven that there is yet time to undo your work and to make a
man of him."

The Abbot sighed. "The child is yours, Conrad," said he,