ld.

And few of all those wonderful old illuminations (for so the painted
ornaments were called) were lovelier than the work of the brotherhood of
St. Martin's. Gabriel felt very proud even to grind the colours for
them. But as he passed over to one of the tables and began to make ready
his paint mortar, the monk who had charge of the writing-room called to
him, saying:

"Gabriel, do not get out thy work here, for the Abbot hath just ordered
that some one must help Brother Stephen, who is alone in the old
chapter-house. He hath a special book to make, and his colour-grinder is
fallen ill; so go thou at once and take Jacques's place."

So Gabriel left the writing-room and passed down the long corridor that
led to the chapter-house. This was a room the brothers had kept for
years as a meeting-place, when they and the Abbot, who governed them
all, wished to talk over the affairs of the Abbey; but as it had at last
grown too small for them, they had built a new and larger one; and so
the old chapter-house was seldom used any more.

Gabriel knew this, and he wondered much why Brother Stephen chose to
work there rather than in the regular writing-room with the others. He
supposed, however, that, for some reason of his own, Brother Stephen
preferred to be alone.

He did not know that the monk, at that moment, was sitting moodily by
his work-table, his eyes staring aimlessly ahead of him, and his hands
dropped idly in his lap. For Brother Stephen was feeling very cross and
unhappy and out of sorts with all the world. And this was the reason:
poor Brother Stephen had entered the Abbey when a lad scarcely older
than Gabriel. He had come of good family, but had been left an orphan
with no one to care for him, and for want of other home had been sent to
the Abbey, to be trained for the brotherhood; for in those days there
were few places where fatherless and motherless children could be taken
care of.

As little Jean (for this was his name before he joined the monks, when
one's own name was always changed) grew up, he took the solemn vows
which bound him to the rules of the brotherhood without realizing what
it all would mean to him; for Brother Stephen was a born artist; and, by
and by, he began to feel that while life in the Abbey was well for most
of the brothers, for him it was not well. He wanted to be free to wander
about the world; to paint pictures of many things; and to go from city
to city, and see and study the wo