e columns, one could glance into a close so small that ten paces would
measure its length. It was a charming little spot, all filled with
flowers and plants that told of some one's constant, tender care. From
above the nodding flowers and leaves rose the statue of the Madonna and
the Child.

The tolling bell called laggards to Mass. With them, the traveller
entered the church, and found it so crowded that it was only after
receiving many knocks from incoming children, and sundry blows on the
head and shoulders from ladies who carried their chairs too carelessly,
after minutes of time and a store of patience, that he finally reached a
haven, a corner of the Chapel of Saint-Veran. There, under the care of
the Cathedral's Patron, he escaped further injuries and assisted at a
long, interesting ceremony.

Mass had already begun, but the voice of the priest and the answering
organ were lost in the movement of excited friends, the murmur of
questions, and the clatter of nailed shoes on the stone floor. A Suisse,
halberd in hand, and gorgeous in tri-cornered hat and the red and gold
of office, kept the aisle-ways open with firm but kind insistence; and
the priests who were directing the children in the body of the church,
were wise enough to overlook the disorder, which was not irreverence,
but interest. For days, everybody had been thinking of this ceremony;
everybody wanted "good places." But few found them. For the little nave
of the church was chiefly given up to the communicants. They sat on long
benches, facing each other. The boys, sixty or seventy of them, were
nearest the Altar; the girls, even more numerous, nearest the door. A
young priest walked between the rows of boys and the old, panting Father
directed the girls.

The whole interior of the church, at whose consecration no less a
prelate than Pope Innocent IV had presided, is small and its plan is
essentially of the Provencal type. The high tunnel vault rests, like
that of Orange, on double arches; and as the nave is very narrow and its
light very dim, the church seems lofty, sombre, and impressive, with a
very serious dignity which its detail fails to carry out. The chapels,
which lie between the heavy buttresses, are dim recesses which increase
the darkened effect of the interior. Of the ten, only three differ
essentially from the general plan; and although of the XVII century,
their style is so severe and they are so ill-lighted that they do not
greatly deb