quaintance. "Oh, Miss Hearst--terrible weather--no, she's not
here yet." "Good morning, Mrs. Smith--very glad you're better. Yes, I
spoke to them about the prayer-books. They promised to return them this
morning ..." and so on. He turned, pushed back a door and led the way
into the chapel. The interior was as ugly as the outside. The walls
were of the coldest grey stone, broken here and there by the lighter
grey of a window. Across the roof were rafters built of that bright
shining wood that belongs intimately to colonial life, sheep-shearing,
apples of an immense size and brushwood. Two lamps of black iron hung
from these rafters. At the farther end of the chapel was a rail of this
same bright wood, and behind the rail a desk and a chair. In front of
the rail was a harmonium before which was already seated a stout and
expectant lady, evidently eager to begin her duties of the day. The
chapel was not very large and was already nearly filled. The
congregation was sitting in absolute silence, so that the passing of
Maggie and her aunts up the aisle attracted great attention. All eyes
were turned in their direction and Maggie felt that she herself was an
object of very especial interest.

Aunt Anne walked first and took what was obviously her own regular seat
near the front. Maggie sat between her two aunts. She could not feel
for the moment anything but a startled surprise at the ugliness of the
building. She had entered at different times the Glebeshire chapels,
but their primitive position and need had given them the spirit of
honest sincerity. Here she had expected she did not know what. Always
from those very early days when she had first heard about her aunts she
had had visions of a strange illuminated place into which God, "riding
on a chariot clothed in flames," would one day come. Even after she had
grown up she had still fancied that the centre of her aunts' strange,
fantastic religion must be a strange, fantastic place. And yet now, as
she looked around her, she was not, to her own surprise, disappointed.
She was even satisfied; the "wonder" was not in the building. Well,
then, it must be in something "inside," something that she had yet to
discover. The chapel had the thrilling quality of a little plain deal
box that carries a jewel.

She examined then the people around her. Women were in a great
majority, a man scattered forlornly amongst them once and again. She
discovered at once the alert eyes of young Mr