Lives of Alcyone

to arrange them and keep them in order, and in a surprisingly short
time he knew the title and the exact place of every book in that vast
library.
So passed some years of eager work, his mother coming
often to see him and to talk with him, though now as a monk he
might not even touch her hand. Some natural maternal sorrow she
felt, that she could no longer embrace her boy; yet this was far
outweighed by the solemn joy that now he had entered upon his
upward course, and that her richest hopes had been fulfilled. Once it
had been she who blessed him and breathed her vows over him;
now she rejoiced to receive a blessing at his hands, and loved to
recite her daily precepts at his dictation.
Though she might no longer embrace him, there was no law
to prevent her from looking at him when he passed through the
streets unconscious of her fond regard. She watched him then with
a joy and pride which had perhaps a certain amount of justification,
for he was certainly by far the handsomest monk in the monastery,
and the beautiful primrose colour, though as that fades with constant
washing and they are dyed again and again, they become a rich
deep orange, and eventually if not renewed, a rather dirty brown. His
father too came occasionally, but had little to say except platitudes,
though he also was gratified at the appearance of his son, and at the
reputation for diligence and sanctity which he had already acquired.
Unfortunately others besides his mother were attracted to his
handsome face, and among them Scorpio—a woman of
considerable notoriety in her own line of life and of doubtful—well,
no, scarcely doubtful—reputation. She saw him passing in the
street, and was smitten by an unholy affection for him; she came to