rches, the great nave, the
white robes of the choir vaguely stirring a sense of angels, the
overarching dome, defined by a fiery rim, but otherwise suggesting
dim, skyey space.

Suddenly she realized that she was sitting among the men. But it did
not seem to matter. The building kept one's thoughts religious. Around
the waiting congregation, the human sea outside the Cathedral
rumoured, and whenever the door was opened to admit some dignitary the
roar of cheering was heard like a salvo saluting his entry. The Lord
Mayor and the Aldermen passed along the aisle, preceded by
mace-bearers; and mingled with this dazzle of gilded grandeur and
robes, was a regretful memory of the days when, as a Town Councillor's
consort, she had at least touched the hem of this unknown historic
English life. The skirl of bagpipes shrilled from without--that
exotic, half-barbarous sound now coming intimately into her life. And
then, a little later, the wild cheers swept into the Cathedral like a
furious wind, and the thrill of the marching soldiers passed into the
air, and the congregation jumped up on the chairs and craned towards
the right aisle to stare at the khaki couples. How she looked for
Simon!

The volunteers filed on, filed on--beardless youths mostly, a few with
a touch of thought in the face, many with the honest nullity of the
clerk and the shopman, some with the prizefighter's jaw, but every
face set and serious. Ah! at last, there was her Simon--manlier,
handsomer than them all! But he did not see her: he marched on
stiffly; he was already sucked up into this strange life. Her heart
grew heavy. But it lightened again when the organ pealed out. The
newspapers the next day found fault with the plain music, with the
responses all in monotone, but to her it was divine. Only the words of
the opening hymn, which she read in the 'Form of Prayer,' discomforted
her:

'Fight the good fight with all thy might,
Christ is thy Strength and Christ thy Right'

But the bulk of the liturgy surprised her, so strangely like was it to
the Jewish. The ninety-first Psalm! Did they, then, pray the Jewish
prayers in Christian churches? 'For He shall give His angels charge
over thee: to keep thee in all thy ways.' Ah! how she prayed that for
Simon!

As the ecclesiastical voice droned on, unintelligibly, inaudibly, in
echoing, vaulted space, she studied the hymns and verses, with their
insistent Old Testament savour, culminating in the fa