You are a stranger to us, you know," Canisius went on, smiling a little, but pleasantly. "And before we admit men amongst us, we need to know that they have something more than a mere desire to join us.. That takes time to find out. Are you willing to stop in the college here for a while?" Stanislaus answered promptly, "Of course I am." "Not as a student," said Canisius. "But as a servant?" "As anything you want," Stanislaus agreed. "Well, come with me," Canisius said, and he led the way to the kitchen. "Here's a new cook," he said to the brother in charge. "At least, he may have in him the makings of a cook. Can you give him something to do?" It was not a very encouraging reception, although it was not so bad as it may sound, condensed as it is in these pages. Neither was it meant to be encouraging. It was meant to test. Stanislaus was as cheerful as a lark. He rolled up his sleeves, smiled at the brother, and waited orders. The brother smiled back, and said: "First, I think you will have something to eat. Then we shall see about work." The Jesuit college at Dillingen, Saint Jerome's, was a big place and numbered many students. Many students mean many cooks and servers at table and servants about the house. Stanislaus took his place amongst a score of such. He washed dishes, helped prepare food, swept, scrubbed -whatever he was told to do. He ate with the servants, took his recreations with them. And he went about it all as simply and naturally as if he had been doing nothing else all his life. His jolliness and kindness won him friends on all sides, as they had always done. He kept up his prayers, you may be sure; ran in to visit our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament whenever he was free to do so; made all he did into a prayer. And of course that irritated some of the other servants, just as it had irritated his brother Paul. And so he had no lack of teasing and petty insults. But he just smiled his way through them and kept on. He was perfectly happy, entirely confident that he was doing God's will. As for the work, he chuckled to himself at the idea that Canisius thought this a test! He would willingly do a thousand times harder things than that for Almighty God. And after all, he said, it really was not so hard. Many a better man than he had to work much harder, at much more unpleasant tasks. And what would it matter in eternity, if he scrubbed pots and pans and floors and windows all his life? The only thing that mattered was to please God, and just now this sort of work was what pleased God. CHAPTER XII THE ROAD TO ROME Canisius kept Stanislaus at his work in the kitchen and about the house for a couple of weeks. He noted his cheerfulness, his love of prayer, his readiness to do any sort of work, and best of all, his simplicity, his entire lack of pose. He saw that this Senator's son made no virtue of taking on himself such lowly tasks, and he knew, therefore, that he was really humble.