d
fared edifyingly on roots and herbs; he washed the feet of three
indigent persons daily, and went in sackcloth; whenever he burned
heretics he fetched and piled up the wood himself, so as to
inconvenience nobody; and he made prioresses and abbesses of his more
intimate and personal associates of yesterday, because he knew that
people are made holy by contact with holiness, and that sainthood is
retroactive.

Thereafter Count Manuel abode for a month at the court of King
Ferdinand, noting whatever to this side and to that side seemed most
notable. Manuel was generally liked by the elect, and in the evening
when the court assembled for family-prayers nobody was more devout than
the Count of Poictesme. He had a quiet way with the abbesses and
prioresses, and with the anchorites and bishops a way of simplicity
which was vastly admired in a divine emissary. "But the particular favor
of Heaven," as King Ferdinand pointed out, "is always reserved for
modest persons."

The feather from the wing of Helmas' goose King Ferdinand had caused to
be affixed to the unassuming skullcap with a halo of gold wire which
Ferdinand now wore in the place of a vainglorious earthly crown; so that
perpetual contiguity with this relic might keep him in augmenting
sanctity. And now that doubt of himself had gone out of his mind,
Ferdinand lived untroubled, and his digestion improved on his light diet
of roots and herbs, and his loving-kindness was infinite, because he
could not now be angry with the pitiable creatures haled before him,
when he considered what lengthy and ingenious torments awaited every one
of them, either in hell or purgatory, while Ferdinand would be playing a
gold harp in heaven.

So Ferdinand dealt tenderly and generously with all. Half of his subjects
said that simply showed you: and the rest of them assented that indeed
you might well say that, and they had often thought of it, and had wished
that young people would take profit by considering such things more
seriously.

And Manuel got clay and modeled a figure which had the features and the
holy look of King Ferdinand.

"Yes, this young fellow you have made of mud is something like me," the
King conceded, "although clay of course cannot do justice to the fine
red cheeks and nose I used to have in the unregenerate days when I
thought about such vanities, and, besides, it is rather more like you.
Still, Count, the thing has feeling, it is wholesome, it is refreshingly