e icy bosom of
winter, but a greater marvel still was the undying sunshine on sea and
shore.

"In very truth," said Serapion, "of all places we have yet seen is not
this most like to have been the blessed land, for is not even 'the
night light about us,' and is it not with us as it is written of the
Heavenly Jerusalem, 'there shall be no night there'?"

The Sea-farers took away with them many of the leaves and flowers of
this country, and afterwards the scribes in the Scriptorium copied them
in beautiful colours in the Golden Missal of the Abbey.

This was the last of the unknown shores visited by the Sea-farers.
Seven years had they pursued their seeking, and there now grew on them
so strong a craving for home that they could gainsay it no longer.
Wherefore it fell out that in the autumn-tide, when the stubble is
brown in the fields and the apple red on the bough; on the last day of
the week, when toil comes to end; in the last light of the day, when
the smoke curls up from the roof, they won their long sea-way home.

[Illustration: _They won their long sea-way home_]

O beloved Abbey of the Holy Face, through tears they beheld thy walls,
with rapture they kissed thy threshold!

"In all the great sea of ocean," said Serapion, when he had told the
story of their wandering, "no such Earthly Paradise have we seen as
this dear Abbey of our own!"

"Dear brethren," said the Abbot, "the seven years of your seeking have
not been wasted if you have truly learned so much. Far from home have
I never gone, but many things have come to me. To be ever, and to be
tranquilly, and to be joyously, and to be strenuously, and to be
thankfully and humbly at one with the blessed will of God--that is the
Heavenly Paradise; and each of us, by God's grace, may have that within
him. And whoso hath within him the Heavenly Paradise, hath here and
now, and at all times and in every place, the true Earthly Paradise
round about him."

Here ends the chapter of the Seven Years of Seeking.

["But do Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us," chanted the Lector, as he
closed the book. And the Prior struck the board, and the brethren
arose and returned God thanks for the creatures of food and drink, and
for that Earthly Paradise, ever at their door, of tranquil and joyous
and strenuous and thankful and humble acceptance of God's will.]

The Guardians of the Door

There was once an orphan girl, far away in a little village on the edge