"What special gain would a day be to us?" sighed Ambrose. "I am thankful that any should take heed for us." "Ay, you love leading-strings," returned Stephen. "Where is he going now? All out of our way!" Father Shoveller, however, as he went down the Castle hill, explained that the Warden of Saint Elizabeth's Hospital was his friend, and knowing him to have acquaintance among the clergy of Saint Paul's, it would be well to obtain a letter of commendation from him, which might serve them in good stead in case they were disappointed of finding their uncle at once. "It would be better for Spring to have a little more rest," thought Stephen, thus mitigating his own longing to escape from the monks and friars, of whom Winchester seemed to be full. They had a kindly welcome in the pretty little college of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, lying in the meadows between William of Wykeham's College and the round hill of Saint Catherine. The Warden was a more scholarly and ecclesiastical-looking person than his friend, the good- natured Augustinian. After commending them to his care, and partaking of a drink of mead, the monk of Silkstede took leave of the youths, with a hearty blessing and advice to husband their few crowns, not to tell every one of their tokens, and to follow the counsel of the Warden of Saint Elizabeth's, assuring them that if they turned back to the Forest they should have a welcome at Silkstede. Moreover he patted Spring pitifully, and wished him and his master well through the journey. Saint Elizabeth's College was a hundred years older than its neighbour Saint Mary's, as was evident to practised eyes by its arches and windows, but it had been so entirely eclipsed by Wykeham's foundation that the number of priests, students, and choir-boys it was intended to maintain, had dwindled away, so that it now contained merely the Warden, a superannuated priest, and a couple of big lads who acted as servants. There was an air of great quietude and coolness about the pointed arches of its tiny cloister on that summer's day, with the old monk dozing in his chair over the manuscript he thought he was reading, not far from the little table where the Warden was eagerly studying Erasmus's _Praise of Folly_. But the Birkenholts were of the age at which quiet means dulness, at least Stephen was, and the Warden had pity both on them and on himself; and hearing joyous shouts outside, he opened a little door in the cloister wall, and revealed a multitude of lads with their black gowns tucked up, "a playing at the ball"--these being the scholars of Saint Mary's. Beckoning to a pair of elder ones, who were walking up and down more quietly, he consigned the strangers to their care, sweetening the introduction by an invitation to supper, for which he would gain permission from their Warden.