lose the door and depart."

Avice's eyes filled with tears.

"O Father, pray for me! I cannot bear to think of that."

Father Thomas rose and laid his hand on Avice's head. His words, as
coming from a priest, rather surprised her.

"My child," he said softly, "let us pray for each other."

Avice stood looking out of the window after him as he went down the
street.

"I wonder," she said to herself, "if our Lord ever turned away thus
because Father Thomas's chamber was not clean! He seemed to know what
it was so well--yet how could such a good, holy man know anything about
it?"

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Note 1. Aubrey is now a man's name only, but in the earlier hall of the
Middle Ages it was used for both sexes.

Note 2. This collect was slightly altered from that in the Sarum
Missal. The form here quoted is the older one.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

AS A LITTLE CHILD.

If you put a single straw into an eddying stream, other straws and bits
of rubbish of all sorts will come and join it, until by and bye it looks
like a little island in the midst of the water. And we often see
something like this going on in men's minds. A man drops one idea,
which another man takes up and considers, till ideas of his own come to
join it, many things seen and heard contribute their help, and at last
the single sentence grows into a mountain of action.

Avice would have been astonished if any one had told her that she had
made an island. But her simple suggestion fell like an odd straw into
the stream of Father Thomas's thoughts, and grew and grew there, until a
few days later it led to decided action.

Father Thomas was by nature a quiet man. His temper was gentle and
even; he hated everything like noise and bustle, far more tumult and
quarrelling. He was not fond even of conversation, except now and then
as a pleasant variety to a quiet life, full of thinking and reading. A
man of this sort is generally an innocent man--by which I mean, a man
who does no harm to his neighbours: and considering how many men and
women spend their lives in doing their neighbours harm of one sort or
another, that is a good deal to say of any man. But there is another
point to be taken into account, namely, what good does such a man do?
Why, no more than a chrysalis. And he is a poor specimen of manhood who
is content to be of no more use in the world than a chrysalis, and to be
as litt