done!"

"Oh, no," said Swythe; "that's the beginning! Now we'll paint the
scroll."

"Why do you say _we_" said the boy. "It is you."

"It's we, because you are helping me," said the monk. "Very soon you
will be doing letters like this, and then I shall help you."

Alfred sighed.

"Are you going to paint that scroll red too?"

"No: purple," was the reply, and Swythe took up another little packet,
which he opened slowly.

"Why, that's blue," cried Alfred.

"Wait a moment!" said Swythe, taking up another clean mussel-shell, into
which he put a tiny patch of the bright blue dust. "Now you shall see
it turn purple."

Taking up the brush, whose hairs were thickly covered with red paint, he
poured a few drops of gum water into the shell amongst the blue powder,
mixed all together with the red brush, and to the boy's great delight a
beautiful purple was the result.

Then the leaves that had been sketched in had to be done, and while the
boy wondered another shell was taken, the brush carefully washed, and a
little of the blue dust was mixed with some yellow, when there was a
brilliant green, which the monk made brighter or darker by adding more
yellow or more blue.

The big ornamental letter was now becoming very bright and gay, Alfred
looking upon it as finished; but Swythe went on.

"It's very wonderful!" said the boy. "You seem as if you can make any
colours out of red, yellow, and blue."

"So will you soon!" said Swythe, smiling, and still painting away, till
at the end of a couple of hours, which seemed to have passed away like
magic, the monk began to carefully clean his brush with water.

"That's done now!" cried Alfred, with a sigh of as much sorrow as
pleasure, for he felt it to be a pity that the task was finished. "But
do you know, Father Swythe," he continued, as he held his head on one
side and looked critically at the staring white letter with its
beautiful ornamentation, "I think if I could paint and painted that
letter I shouldn't have left it all white like that."

"What would you have done, then?"

"I should have painted it deep yellow like a buttercup--a good sunny
yellow, to look like gold."

"Well done!" cried the monk. "Why, that's exactly what it is going to
be. It isn't finished, but I'm not going to paint it yellow. I'm going
to paint it red first."

"I don't think I shall like that," said the boy, shaking his head.

"Wait and see!" said the monk, and once more mixing u