we all do without your voice in the choir to guide those which may be as willing, but have not the sweetness and accuracy of your own? Nay, Leofric, you possess such gifts as should make you grateful to your Maker every day that you live."

::

"But supposing one hated one's daily work, the everlasting transcribing and emblazoning, and the offices that never cease their monotonous routine, what then?" exclaimed the boy passionately.

Leofric, what is the matter with you? Will you not open your heart, and tell me what grieves you? Perchance I may be able to find a remedy."

Leofric had expected a sharp reprimand for his outspoken burst of impatience, but the gentle compassionate voice of the older man touched him as no rebuke would have done. In spite of his efforts to prevent it, he burst into tears.

Brother Tolius said not a word, but quietly sat down by Leofric's side, and waited till the sobbing ceased. Presently the boy gasped forth, "How you must despise me for my wicked, discontented spirit, and for such weakness as this! 'Tis not enough that I have a puny body, despicable for its deformity, but I must needs play the woman as well, and shame myself still more with these tears."

Brother Tolius was skilled in reading the human heart if slow in deciphering his manuscripts. Leofric's speech gave him the key-note to the inharmonious chord at work within the boy.

"Leofric, my friend," he said gravely and tenderly, "do you think that man has not learnt, at least in some degree, the lesson that the Almighty God is always teaching: that it is the mind, not the body; what a man is, and not what he has, that makes him lovable in the sight of GOD and his fellow-creatures? If you were a giant for strength, and size, and valour, do you suppose that He who has made you, would esteem you one jot more highly than if your body were the most distorted and ill-shaped that it is possible to conceive ?”

"Oh, I know all that," Leofric answered wearily. "I say it to myself a hundred times a day, and I thought I hoped that I was beginning to make myself believe it, when this morning all my resolutions to be content and happy with the body and the work that GOD has given me, broke down, and I feel now that there is within me a burning fever of rebellion against His Will that is eating into my very heart's core.'

"What has happened, Leofric? tell me.

Brother Tolius was almost a stranger to Leofric, yet the boy felt as though he had known him for years, and spoke out from the depth of his innermost soul.

"My brother Siward called at the monastery this morning, and begged leave to see me. I have four brothers all older than myself, and like my father, and my father's father before that, they are all brave soldiers, renowned throughout Mercia for their valour and skill in battle, and the strength with which they wield the sword. Siward told me that they were all going forth to fight against the Danes, but he bade me and he laughed as he said it-stay here and pray for them who had no time to pray for themselves. And he said, too, that it was well that there should be one in the family who perforce must become a monk, to fast and to pray for the souls of his kinsmen. I could have cursed him for his mocking words, but oh, why was I born with such a longing for a soldier's life, if I was not to have a body capable of carrying out my heart's desire ?"

"There was a reason, be assured of that, Leofric. But, my boy, you can be a soldier, if you will, notwithstanding."

"Oh, tell me how!"

the sparkle to his eye.

And the colour rushed to Leofric's cheek, and

"I mean in a spiritual sense. Do you not remember what S. Paul says about that? Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of JESUS CHRIST.' Ah, Leofric, it may be a more difficult, but believe me, it is a grander thing to destroy the foes of one's own soul than to march with sword and spear against the enemy of one's country."

Leofric drooped his head wearily. Brother Tolius perceived that his words had been only words to the desponding boy.

"It is strange," the monk continued after pausing awhile, “that I should have voluntarily renounced the life for which you so earnestly long. Yet, I am far happier in this quiet monastery than ever I was in the din and tumult of the battle field. I find from blessed experience that it gives truer happiness to pray for the souls of our fellowmen than to kill their bodies."

"Oh," burst forth Leofric, impetuously, "I cannot imagine how you could have been induced"—to play false to your calling, he was about to add, but he stopped himself ere his impulsiveness had run away with his courtesy.

if

"I have no doubt that it does surprise you," Tolius answered, “but knew the reason you would cease to be astonished. You shall

you

hear the story if you wish, Leofric, only bear in mind that what I tell you must be sacredly locked up within your own breast."

At this moment the sound of a bell struck upon their ears.

"We must not stay longer now," said the monk. "The bell calls us to vespers, but come here to-morrow, and we will have further talk together."

So saying the monk gathered up his manuscripts and walked rapidly towards the chapel, while the boy followed at a slower pace.

As was their wont, two voices of marvellous beauty blended harmoniously together in that evening song of praise. Floating over the bowed heads of the congregation, the sounds penetrated to the very rafters of the building, and there, so sweet and lingering were their dying cadences that it seemed as if the angels who were waiting to receive them, swelled them with their own heavenly music before bearing them off as an acceptable offering of praise to the GOD of heaven and earth.

The singers were Leofric and one Turgar, a child of ten years of age, the pet of the monastery and beloved by all. And that he was so was no marvel, for added to a face and form of exquisite beauty and grace, he possessed a disposition of such rare sweetness and amiability, that, child as he was, a fretful look had never been known to cross his brow, nor an impatient word to escape his lips. He was always the same sunny, happy, little Turgar whose gentleness and content shone forth from his dark blue eyes, and were expressed in the smile that constantly hovered around his lips. To love, and to be loved, made up the sum of the child's life. A full sum it was, too, for giving freely of that pure, innocent love of his, he received in return, good measure, pressed down and overflowing. From dear old Father Theodore

downwards, Turgar was an universal favourite.

Side by side in the choir, he and Leofric stood. If the difference had been marked between Leofric and Tolius, it was still more apparent between the youth and the child. Turgar, so straight and supple, and so marvellously beautiful that his face seemed that of an angel; Leofric, deformed and feeble, with a wan face and thin, sharp features. And yet nobody thought of the outward appearance of the latter, as his mellow voice pealed through the Church, in the glorious words,

"Magnificat anima mea Dominum

Et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salvatore meo."

Nobody thought of the singer, did I say? Ah yes! one did, for

while Leofric's voice resounded from floor to roof, Brother Tolius bowed low his head, and prayed right earnestly that Leofric might find peace of mind and inward happiness.

Leofric was waiting in the appointed place on the following afternoon. He had not long to stay before Tolius joined him, and the two were soon talking earnestly together. One thing that the good monk remarked, and with gladness, was, that the heavy cloud which had darkened Leofric's brow on the previous day was greatly lessened, and the eagerness in his face, and the bright look in his eye, told plainly that he was thinking less of self and more of others. If such a feeling as regret that he had promised to tell the history of his past life had crossed the mind of Tolius, it must have vanished when he saw what an interest he had kindled in the boy.

"Like yourself, Leofric," began Brother Tolius presently, "I am one of a family who have for generations been noted for their prowess in battle. In all Mercia none have been more renowned for their courage and valour than were my ancestors. From my babyhood, therefore, I was trained to war, and I grew up surpassing even my father's hopes. Of great physical strength, and possessing an inherent fearlessness of character, I found myself when still a mere boy at the head of a chosen band of Mercian warriors, who increased the selfconceit and pride in which I was already steeped, by exalting me into a hero. To fight was my glory; the field of battle was my heaven, and to live as a soldier, and to die as a soldier, were my only desires.

"So passed several years, when lo, one evening as I sat a guest in the hall of Hedda, Thane of Lea, I saw before me the lovely face of a fair young maiden, and from that moment, no longer war, but love, held the foremost place in my heart. Ah! Leofric, how beautiful she was, I cannot tell you, and more, she was as good as she was fair.

"It was long before I could summon courage to confess my love, for though I was as brave as a lion when encountering an enemy, my tongue faltered, and my heart failed me, whenever I approached the Lady Editha, who seemed in her purity and gentleness as far removed from me as the Angels themselves. At length, however, I whispered my secret, and you can imagine my joy when she told me that her heart was mine already.

"So we were betrothed, and the summer that followed was one long, happy dream. Under her influence, so gentle, yet so powerful, I became a changed man. I thought with shame of the many foul sins

that I had committed, for the very mention of which in her pure presence I should have struck the speaker to the earth. With horror and disgust I remembered, too, the terrible tortures that I had inflicted upon the pagan foes whom I had taken prisoners in battle, and so, all unconsciously to herself, she taught me what was noble and true, and how it became me to act as a Christian.

"The autumn brought an interruption to our happiness. The king had need of my services, to guard the south-eastern coast from the frequent incursions of the Danes, and I was forced to go. In vain I pleaded with the Thane Hedda for his daughter's hand ere I set out on my journey. Nay,' said he, she is too young to wed, at present,' -as in truth she was, having only just attained her seventeenth birthday—' but go thou forth,' he continued, and earn fresh laurels in the south. Then when thou returnest, ask what reward thou wilt, and I promise thee thou shalt have it.'

"With that I had to be content, and so, taking a fond farewell of my betrothed, I rode away. Alas! I little guessed how long a time would elapse before I should again behold her, and under what painful circumstances.

"If Editha had been dear to me when we were constantly together, she was doubly so now that we were separated. Separated, did I say? Not so, she was still present in the spirit, for ever in my ears her gentle voice seemed whispering, and many an unholy thought and deed were stayed by its promptings, while her pleading eyes rising before me forbade me to perpetrate the acts of unnecessary torture, which I had once delighted to inflict upon my victims. It appeared to me that she was the guardian angel of my body, too, as well as of my soul. It was said that I bore a charmed life, for though I plunged into the thickest of the battle, and was always at the post of danger, I escaped without so much as a scratch. I came to believe what was said of me, and I used to think that I owed it all to Editha. I made her name my battle-cry. Shouting the word I would rush upon my enemies, while they, panic-struck by the very sound of the ejaculation, would not even wait to draw their swords, but fled before me in craven fear, and dire confusion.

"I was detained in the south far beyond my expectations. Month after month rolled by, season succeeded to season, and still my presence was needed to keep the Danes in check. Then one evening -how well I remember it: just as I saw it then, I see now the