and so,
perhaps--perhaps--might not the Lord God feel kindly toward him, too,
and be willing to grant a little prayer to him also?

Now of course Gabriel could have prayed any time and anywhere, and
simply asked for what he wanted. But he had a strong feeling that God
would be much more apt to notice it, if the prayer were beautifully
written out, like Brother Stephen's, and placed in the book itself, on
the making of which he had worked so long and so hard.

Gabriel was very pleased with his idea, and by the time he reached home,
he had planned out just what he wanted to say. He ate his supper of hard
black bread very happily, and when, soon after, he crept into bed and
pulled up his cover of ragged sheepskin, he went to sleep with his head
so full of the work of the past few months, that he dreamed that the
whole world was full of painted books and angels with rose-coloured
wings; that all the meadows of Normandy were covered with gold, and the
flowers fastened on with white of egg and eel-skins; and then, just as
he was getting out his ruler to rule lines over the blue sky, he rubbed
his eyes and woke up; and, finding it was morning, he jumped out of bed,
and hastened to make himself ready for his day's work.

When he reached the Abbey, Brother Stephen was busy binding together the
finished leaves of the book; for the monks had to do not only the
painting, but also the putting together of their books themselves.

After Gabriel had waited on Brother Stephen for awhile, the latter told
him he could have some time to himself, and so he hurried to get out the
little jars of scarlet and blue and black ink, and the bits of parchment
that Brother Stephen had given him. He looked over the parchment
carefully, and at last found one piece from which he could cut a page
that was almost as large as the pages of the book. It was an old piece,
and had some writing on one side, but he knew how to scrape it off
clean; and then taking some of the scarlet ink, he ruled some lines in
the centre of the page, and between these, in the nicest black letters
he knew how to make, he wrote his little prayer. And this is the way it
read:

"I, Gabriel Viaud, am Brother Stephen's colour-grinder; and I have made
the ink for this book, and the glue, and caught the eels, and ground the
gold and colours, and ruled the lines and gathered the flowers for the
borders, and so I pray the Lord God will be kind and let my father out
of prison in Count