journey, and they said to each other, "It has been sent to us by God."
They turned aside that they might make it their own. They spent the
year in the deeds of mercy to which it called them among the
plague-stricken villagers.

It would take too long to tell all that this good Prince and his sister
achieved in that year. The village lay in a hollow among dense woods
and on the edge of a stagnant marsh. The Prince had the marsh drained
and the woods thinned. Every house in the village was thoroughly
repaired and cleaned. The sick people were taken up to the
tent-hospital and cared for until they got well. The men who had fled
returned. The terrified mothers ventured back. The sickness began to
slacken. In a few months it disappeared. Then the Prince caused wells
to be dug to supply water for drinking. Then he built airy schools for
the children. Last of all he repaired the church, which had fallen
into ruin, and trained a choir of boys to sing thanks to God. But when
all these things had been accomplished, the year during which he was to
have searched for the Golden Age was within a few weeks of its close.
And, what was worse, it was too plain to his sister that the Prince's
health had suffered by his toils. Night and day he had labored in his
service of love. Night and day he had carried the burden of the
sickness and infirmities of the village in his heart. It had proved a
burden greater than he could bear. He had toiled on till he saw health
restored to every home. He toiled until he saw the village itself
protected from a second visitation of the plague. But his own strength
was meanwhile ebbing away. The grateful villagers observed with grief
how heavily their deliverer had to lean on his sister's arm in walking.
And tears, which they strove in vain to conceal, would gather in their
eyes as they watched the voice that had so often cheered them sinking
into a whisper, and the pale face becoming paler every day.