flocks like merry snow-birds, all in black and white, chattering
and whispering together. This was no day for tedious task-work,
no day for grammar or arithmetic, no day for picking out
illuminated letters in red and gold on stiff parchment, or
patiently chasing intricate patterns over thick cloth with the
slow needle. It was a holiday. A famous visitor had come to the
convent.

It was Winfried of England, whose name in the Roman tongue was
Boniface, and whom men called the Apostle of Germany. A great
preacher; a wonderful scholar; he had written a Latin grammar
himself,--think of it,--and he could hardly sleep without a book
under his pillow; but, more than all, a great and daring
traveller, a venturesome pilgrim, a high-priest of romance.

He had left his home and his fair estate in Wessex; he would not
stay in the rich monastery of Nutescelle, even though they had
chosen him as the abbot; he had refused a bishopric at the court
of King Karl. Nothing would content him but to go out into the
wild woods and preach to the heathen.

Up and down through the forests of Hesse and Thuringia, and along
the borders of Saxony, he had wandered for years, with a handful
of companions, sleeping under the trees, crossing mountains and
marshes, now here, now there, never satisfied with ease and
comfort, always in love with hardship and danger.

What a man he was! Fair and slight, but straight as a spear and
strong as an oaken staff. His face was still young; the smooth
skin was bronzed by wing and sun. His gray eyes, clear and kind,