“This is an active Order, isn’t it?” Mark countered.  “Of course, I’m not tired of mission work.  But after being with Father Rowley and being kept busy all the time I found that being at home in the country made me idle.  I told the Reverend Father that I hoped to be ordained as a secular priest and that I did not imagine I had any vocation for the contemplative life.  I have as a matter of fact a great longing for it.  But I don’t think that twenty-one is a good age for being quite sure if that longing is not mere sentiment.  I suppose you think I’m just indulging myself with the decorative side of religion, Father Lamplugh?  I really am not.  I can assure you that I’m far too much accustomed to the decorative side to be greatly influenced by it.”

The old priest laid a thin hand on Mark’s sleeve.

“To tell the truth, my dear boy, I was on the verge of violating the decencies of accepted hospitality by criticizing the Order of which you have become a probationer.  I am just a little doubtful about the efficacy of its method of training young men.  However, it really is not my business, and I hope that I am wrong.  But I am a little doubtful if all these excellent young brethren are really desirous . . . no, I’ll not say another word, I’ve already disgracefully exceeded the limitations to criticism that courtesy alone demands of me.  I was carried away by my interest in you when I heard whose son you were.  What a debt we owe to men like your father and Rowley!  And here am I at seventy-six after a long and useless life presuming to criticize other people.  God forgive me!” The old man crossed himself.

That afternoon and evening recreation was unusually noisy, and during Vespers one or two of the brethren were seized with an attack of giggles because Brother Lawrence, who was in a rapt condition of mind owing to the near approach of St. Lawrence’s day when he was to be clothed as a novice, tripped while he was holding back the cope during the censing of the Magnificat and falling on his knees almost upset Father Lamplugh.  There was no doubt that the way Brother Lawrence stuck out his lower jaw when he was self-conscious was very funny; but Mark wished that the giggling had not occurred in front of Father Lamplugh.  He wished too that during recreation after supper Brother Raymond would be less skittish and Brother Dunstan less arch in the manner of reproving him.

“Holy simplicity is all very well,” Mark thought.  “But holy imbecility is a great bore, especially when there is a stranger present.”

Luckily Father Burrowes came back the following week, and Mark’s deepening impression of the monastery’s futility was temporarily obliterated by the exciting news that the Bishop of Alberta whom the brethren were taught to reverence as a second founder would be the guest of the Order on St. Lawrence’s day and attend the profession of Brother Anselm.  Mark had not yet seen Brother Anselm, who was the brother