Wherefore," said he, "let us kneel together and pray God to increase our love of this holy Poverty, which is so noble that thereunto God himself became a servitor."' The declining sun, slanting in past the Banksia roses, touched the edge of a giant amethyst which the Master wore, by inheritance of office, on his forefinger; and, because his hand trembled a little with age, the gem set the reflected ray dancing in a small pool of light, oval-shaped and wine-coloured, on the white margin of the sermon.

He stared at it for a moment, tracing it mistakenly to a glass of Rhone wine--a _Chateau Neuf du Pape_ of a date before the phylloxera--that stood neglected on the writing-table.
(By his doctor's orders he took a glass of old wine and a biscuit every afternoon at this hour as a gentle digestive.) Thus reminded, he reached out a hand and raised the wine to his lips, nodding as he sipped.
"In Common Room, Simeon, we used to say that no man was really educated who preferred Burgundy to claret, but that on the lower Rhone all tastes met in one ecstasy.

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