imperious command, and not unfrequently treated him with personal
indignity.

Wilfrid felt these things very acutely, and the more so because the
former kindness of his youthful lord had won his earliest affections.
But he now bore all his capricious changes of temper with meekness. It
was only in his unrestrained confidence with his widowed mother that he
ever uttered a complaint of the young Atheling, and then he spoke of
him in sorrow, not in anger; for he rightly attributed much of Prince
Edwin's unamiable conduct to the pernicious influence which the artful
Brithric had, through flattery, obtained over his mind.

"Patience, my son," would the widowed Ermengarde say in those moments
when Wilfrid sought relief by venting his anguish in tears on the bosom
of his tender mother, "patience, my son; true greatness is shown most
especially in enduring with magnanimity the crosses and trials which
are of every-day occurence. Let sorrow, sickness, or any other
adversity touch Prince Edwin, and he will learn the difference between
a true friend and a false flatterer. In due time, your worth will be
proved, and your victory will be a glorious one: for it will be the
triumph of virtue!"


CHAPTER III.

The day which Ermengarde had predicted was close at hand. An
infectious fever broke out in the college, which, in several instances,
proved fatal to those who were attacked by it, and spread such terror
throughout the college that when Prince Edwin fell sick he was forsaken
by almost every living creature. His faithful page, Wilfrid, however,