us abhorrence of all amendment.

1st Monk. Do you hear that shout? There is the procession
returning from the tomb.

2d Monk. Hark to the tramp of the horse-hoofs! A gallant show,
I'll warrant!

1st Monk. Time was, now, when we were young bloods together in the
world, such a roll as that would have set our hearts beating against
their cages!

2d Monk. Ay, ay. We have seen sport in our day; we have paraded
and curvetted, eh? and heard scabbards jingle? We know the sly
touch of the heel, that set him on his hind legs before the right
window. Vanitas vanitatum--omnia vanitas! Here comes Gerard,
Conrad's chaplain, with our dinner.

[Gerard enters across the court.]

1st Monk. A kindly youth and a godly, but--reformation-bitten, like
the rest.

2d Monk. Never care. Boys must take the reigning madness in
religion, as they do the measles--once for all.

1st Monk. Once too often for him. His face is too, too like Abel's
in the chapel-window. Ut sis vitalis metuo, puer!

Ger. Hail, fathers. I have asked permission of the prior to
minister your refection, and bring you thereby the first news of the
pageant.

1st Monk. Blessings on thee for a good boy. Give us the trenchers,
and open thy mouth while we open ours.

2d Monk. Most splendid all, no doubt?

Ger. A garden, sir,
Wherein all rainbowed flowers were heaped together;
A sea of silk and gold, of blazoned banners,
And chargers housed; such glorious press, be sure,
Thuringen-land ne'er saw.

2d Monk. Just hear the boy!
Who rode beside the bier?

Ger. Frederic the Kaiser,
Henry the Landgrave, brother of her husband;
The Princesses, too, Agnes, and her mother;
And every noble name, sir, at whose war-cry
The Saxon heart leaps up; with them the prelates
Of Treves, of Coln, and Maintz--why name them all?
When all were there, whom this our fatherland
Counts worthy of its love.

1st Monk. 'Twas but her right.
Who spoke the oration?

Ger. Who but Conrad?

2d Monk. Well--
That's honour to our house.

1st Monk. Come, tell us all.

2d Monk. In order, boy: thou hast a ready tongue.

Ger. He raised from off her face the pall, and 'Lo!'
He cried, 'that saintly flesh which ye of late
With sacrilegious hands, ere yet entombed,
Had in your superstitious selfishness
Almost torn piecemeal. Fools! Gross-hearted fools!
These limbs are God's, not yours: in life for you
They spent themselves; now till the judgment-day
By virtue of