n
declaring they were hungry after their drive. But," added Brother
Manby, with a glance at a card affixed by the archway and announcing
that tickets to view the hospital could be procured at sixpence a
head, "they were most appreciative, I must say."

The Master smiled, nodded, and passed on. He gathered that someone
had profited by something over and above the twelve sixpences.

But how gracious, how serenely beautiful, how eloquent of peace and
benediction, the scene that met him as he crossed the threshold of
the great quadrangle! Some thousands of times his eyes had rested on
it, yet how could it ever stale?

"_In the evening there shall be light_."--The sun, declining in a
cloudless west behind the roof-ridge and tall chimneys of the
Brethren's houses, cast a shadow even to the sundial that stood for
centre of the wide grass-plot. All else was softest gold--gold
veiling the sky itself in a powdery haze; gold spread full along the
front of the 'Nunnery,' or row of upper chambers on the eastern line
of the quadrangle, where the three nurses of St. Hospital have their
lodgings; shafts of gold penetrating the shaded ambulatory below;
gold edging the western coigns of the Norman chapel; gold rayed and
slanting between boughs in the park beyond the railings to the south.
Only the western side of the quadrangle lay in shadow, and in the
shadow, in twos and threes, beside their doors and tiny flower-plots
(their pride), sat the Brethren, with no anxieties, with no care but
to watch the closing tranquil hour: some with their aged wives
(for the Hospital, as the Church of England with her bishops, allows
a Brother to have one wife, but ignores her existence), some in
monastic groups, withdrawn from hearing of women's gossip.

The Master chose the path that, circumventing the grass-plot, led him
past these happy-looking groups and couples. To be sure, it was not
his nearest way to the home-park, where he intended to think out his
peroration; but he had plenty of time, and moreover he delighted to
exchange courtesies with his charges. For each he had a greeting--

--"Fine weather, fine weather, Brother Dasent! Ah, this is the time
to get rid of the rheumatics! Eh, Mrs. Dasent? I haven't seen him
looking so hale for months past."

--"A beautiful evening, Brother Clerihew--yes, beautiful
indeed. . . . You notice how the swallows are flying, both high and
low, Brother Woolcombe? . . . Yes, I think we are in for a