His white-and-rose cherub's face expressed the utmost goodness and innocence.
"Dear kinsman," said the Abbot to his nephew, "I have a request to prefer which I hope you will grant, though it deprive you of one retainer.

This sweet youth is not fit company for rude soldiers and ill-bred rufflers of the camp.

His mind is already on higher things.
He hath good clerkly Latin also, being skilled in the humanities, as I have heard proven with mine own ears.

His grace of language and deportment is manifest, and he can sing the sweetest and most spiritual songs in praise of Mary and the saints.

I would have him in our choir at Sweetheart Abbey, where we have much need both of a voice such as his, and also of a youth whose sanctity and innocence cannot fail to leaven with the grace of the spirit the neophytes of our college, and the consideration of whom may even bring repentance into older and more hardened hearts." Malise MacKim could not believe his ears as he listened to the Abbot's rounded periods.