* * * * *

“Oh, Father Ambrose,” cried the girl, when at last he entered her presence, “I watched your approach from afar off.  You walked with halting step, and shoulders increasingly bowed.  You are wearing yourself out in my service, and that I cannot permit.  You return this evening a tired man.”

“Not physically tired,” replied the monk, with a smile.  “My head is bowed with meditation and prayer, rather than with fatigue.  Indeed, it is others who do the harassing manual labor, while I simply direct and instruct.  Sometimes I think I am an encumberer in the vineyard, lazily using brain instead of hand.”

“Nonsense!” cried the girl, “the vineyard would be but a barren plantation without you; and speaking of it reminds me that I have poured out, with my own hand, a tankard of the choicest, oldest wine in our cellars, which I allow no one but yourself to taste.  Sit down, I beg of you, and drink.”

The wise old man smiled, wondering what innocent trap was being set for him.  He raised the tankard to his lips, but merely indulged in one sip of the delectable beverage.  Then he seated himself, and looked at the girl, still smiling.  She went on speaking rapidly, a delicate flush warming her fair cheeks.

“Father, you are the most patient and indefatigable of agriculturists, sparing neither yourself nor others, but there is danger that you grow bucolic through overlong absence from the great affairs of this world.”

“What can be greater, my child, than increasing the productiveness of the land; than training men to supply all their needs from the fruitful earth?”

“True, true,” admitted the girl, her eyes sparkling with eagerness, “but to persist overlong even in well-doing becomes ultimately tedious.  If the laborer is worthy of his hire, so, too, is the master.  You should take a change, and as I know your fondness for travel, I have planned a journey for you.”

The old man permitted himself another sip of the wine.

“Where?” he asked.

“Oh, an easy journey; no farther than the royal city of Frankfort, there to wander among the scenes of your youth, and become interested for a time in the activities of your fellow-men.  You have so long consorted with those inferior to you in intellect and learning that a meeting with your equals—­though I doubt if there are any such even in Frankfort—­must prove as refreshing to your mind as that old wine would to your body, did you but obey me and drink it.”

Father Ambrose slowly shook his head.

“From what I hear of Frankfort,” he said, “it is anything but an inspiring town.  In my day it was indeed a place of cheer, learning, and prosperity, but now it is a city of desolation.”

“The rumors we hear, Father, may be exaggerated; and even if the city itself be doleful, which I doubt, there is sure to be light and gayety in the precincts of the Court and in the homes of the nobility.”