ancholy in the honied tone of the chime, and it gave him a glow that
went with him happily throughout the dreary day.

He found himself between the children in the deep dark pew, where the
back of the seat was especially contrived to seize the sinner in a
sensitive point, and it clutched Antony and made him think of all the
crimes that he had ever committed. Fortunately it met Bella and Gardiner
at their heads. Antony's position between the children was not without
danger. He was to serve as a quieter for Bella's nerves, spirits and
perpetual motion, and to guard against Gardiner's somnolence. He
remained deaf to Bella's clear whispers, and settled Gardiner
comfortably and propped him up. Finally the little boy fell securely
against the cousinly arm. At the end of the pew, Mr. and Mrs. Carew were
absorbed, she in her emotional interest in the pastor, a brilliant
Irishman who thundered for an hour, and Mr. Carew in his own importance
and his position. Antony remembered Miss Mitty and that his uncle was a
pillar of the Church, and he watched the pillar support in grave
pomposity his part of the edifice.

But neither time nor place nor things eternal nor things present
affected the little girl at Antony's side. Sunk in the deep pew,
unobserved and sheltered by Antony's figure, she lived what she called
her "Sunday pew life," lived it as ardently as she did everything. After
a short interval in which she pored over the open hymnbook, she
whispered to him ---- ----

"Cousin Antony, I have learned the whole hymn, ten verses in five
minutes. Hear me."

He tried to ignore her, but he was obliged to hear her as with great
feeling and in a soft droning undertone she murmured the hymn through.

"'Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.' Isn't it perfectly beautiful,
Cousin Antony?"

This done, she took off her yellow kid gloves carefully, finger by
finger, and blew them out into a shapely little hand like Zephyr's, to
the dangerous amusement of a child in the next pew. Antony confiscated
the gloves. By squeezing up her eyes and making a lorgnon of her pretty
bare hand, Bella scrutinized the solemn preacher. Antony severely
refused her pencils and paper and remained deaf to her soft questions,
and, thrown on her own resources, Bella extracted her father's huge
Bible from the rack and, to Fairfax's relief, with much turning of the
leaves she finally found a favourite chapter in Revelation and settled
down and immersed herself