till very full.

'And it is thy desire to leave the world, and enter our convent?'
continued the prior. 'Art thou willing to give up all, that thou mayest
become a servant of God?'

The little dirty brown hands clutched the bread in dismay. Did the kind
man mean that he was to give up his bread when he had scarcely eaten
half of it?

'No, no; eat thy bread, child,' said the prior, with an understanding
nod. 'Thou art but a babe, but we will make a good monk of thee yet.'

Then, indeed, began happy days for Filippo. No more threadbare coats,
but a warm little brown serge robe, tied round the waist with a rope
whose ends grew daily shorter as the way round his waist grew longer.
No more lupin skins and whiffs of fried polenta, but food enough and to
spare; such food as he had not dreamt of before, and always as much as
he could eat.

Filippo was as happy as the day was long. He had always been a merry
little soul even when life had been hard and food scarce, and now he
would not have changed his lot with the saints in Paradise.

But the good brothers began to think it was time Filippo should do
something besides play and eat.

'Let us see what the child is fit for,' they said.

So Filippo was called in to sit on the bench with the boys and learn
his A B C. That was dreadfully dull work. He could never remember the
names of those queer signs. Their shapes he knew quite well, and he
could draw them carefully in his copy-book, but their names were too
much for him. And as to the Latin which the good monks tried to teach
him, they might as well have tried to teach a monkey.

All the brightness faded from Filippo's face the moment a book was put
before him, and he looked so dull and stupid that the brothers were in
despair. Then for a little things seemed to improve. Filippo suddenly
lost his stupid look as he bent over the pages, and his eyes were
bright with interest.

'Aha!' said one brother nudging the other, 'the boy has found his
brains at last.'

But great indeed was their wrath and disappointment when they looked
over his shoulder. Instead of learning his lessons, Filippo had been
making all sorts of queer drawings round the margin of the page. The
A's and B's had noses and eyes, and looked out with little grinning
faces. The long music notes had legs and arms and were dancing about
like little black imps. Everything was scribbled over with the naughty
little figures.

This was really too much, and Fili