e
first cathedral I had ever been in. The shock and the wonder of its
grandeur took my breath away. When I had found courage to look round,
and up at those awful vaults the roofs, I could not help crying a
little. The vastness, coolness, stillness, and splendor crushed me--the
great solemn rays of sunlight coming in slanting glory through the
windows--the huge height--the impression it gave of greatness, and of a
religious devotion to which we shall never again attain; of pure, noble
hearts, and patient, skillful hands, toiling, but in a spirit that made
the toil a holy prayer--carrying out the builder's thought--great
thought greatly executed--all was too much for me, the more so in that
while I felt it all I could not analyze it. It was a dim, indefinite
wonder. I tried stealthily and in shame to conceal my tears, looking
surreptitiously at him in fear lest he should be laughing at me again.
But he was not. He held his cap in his hand--was looking with those
strange, brilliant eyes fixedly toward the high altar, and there was
some expression upon his face which I could not analyze--not the
expression of a person for whom such a scene has grown or can grow
common by custom--not the expression of a sight-seer who feels that he
must admire; not my own first astonishment. At least he felt it--the
whole grand scene, and I instinctively and instantly felt more at home
with him than I had done before.

"Oh!" said I, at last, "if one could stay here forever, what would one
grow to?"

He smiled a little.

"You find it beautiful?"

"It is the first I have seen. It is much more than beautiful."

"The first you have seen? Ah, well, I might have guessed that."

"Why? Do I look so countrified?" I inquired, with real interest, as I
let him lead me to a little side bench, and place himself beside me. I
asked in all good faith. About him there seemed such a cosmopolitan
ease, that I felt sure he could tell me correctly how I struck other
people--if he would.

"Countrified--what is that?"

"Oh, we say it when people are like me--have never seen anything but
their own little village, and never had any adventures, and--"

"Get lost at railway stations, _und so weiter_. I don't know enough of
the meaning of 'countrified' to be able to say if you are so, but it is
easy to see that you--have not had much contention with the powers that
be."

"Oh, I shall not be stupid long," said I, comfortably. "I am not going
back home again