"I carved a box for the mother, and when the cousin Adele saw it she would have one too. It was made with a wreath of roses on the lid, but I would not make roses for any one but the mother; Adele's box has lilies, and a picture of herself. That she liked better." Brother Basil was thinking. "Quentin," he said, "I know a wood-carver here, Master Gerard, who is from Peronne, and knows your talk better than I. He was a boy like you when he began to learn the work of the huchier and the wood-carver, and he might give you a place in his shop. Will your father let you stay?" "He will if I get the chance," said Quentin. "If I ask him now, Pierre will say things." Like many younger brothers, Quentin knew more about the older members of his family than they knew about him. Brother Basil's smile escaped control this time. He turned and strode across the market-place to the shop of Master Gerard, beckoning Quentin to follow. "Master," he said to the old huchier, who was planing and chipping and shaping a piece of Spanish chestnut, "here is a boy who has fallen in love with your trade." Master Gerard glanced up in some surprise. "He likes the trade, does he?" was the gruff comment he made. "Does the trade like him?" "That is for you to say," said Brother Basil, and turning on his heel he went out, to walk up and down in the sunshine before the door and meditate on the loves of craftsmen for their crafts. "What can you do?" asked the old man shortly, still working at his piece of chestnut. Quentin took from his pouch a bit of wood on which he had carved, very carefully, the figure of a monk at a reading-desk with a huge volume before him. He had done it the day before after he had been with Brother Basil to bring some books from the Bishop's house, and although the figure was too small and his knife had been too clumsy to make much of a portrait of the face, he had caught exactly the intent pose of the head and the characteristic attitude of the monk's angular figure. Master Gerard frowned. "What sort of carving is that!" he barked. "The wood is coarse and the tools were not right. You tell me you did it?" Quentin stood his ground. "It is my work, Master," he said. "I had only this old knife, and I know the wood is not right, but it was all that I had." "And you want to learn my trade--eh?" said the old man a little more kindly. "You have no father?"