at you hear the echoing
tramp of the long procession now winding up the nave. Six or eight
pensioners, old soldiers in quaint blue cloth gowns and silver badges,
enter and take their places. And as the white-surpliced boys appear in
the black shadow of the gateway under the organ screen, the whole three
thousand people rise quietly to their feet and stand. First come the
boys of Westminster School with their masters, and take their places
right and left. Then the little chorister boys, walking two and two, the
smallest in front--little mites who look as if they would hardly know
their letters, but who march gravely to their seats, and sing the long
service like sweet-voiced little birds. Then the "singing gentlemen of
Westminster Abbey," as the men in the choir are called--many of them
well-known professionals, whose names are seen during the week at the
best concerts in England. Then come the clergy. The minor Canons first
who intone the service. Next to them the Canon in residence, who, during
his two months at Westminster, is present at every service week-day and
Sunday. And last of all the Dean.

After the Dean has gone into his stall on the right of the entrance, the
service begins. The monotone of the prayers breaks into rich harmonies
now and again at the responses--the organ re-echoes through the arches
and pillars with thundering of the pedals, and wild, pathetic
reed-notes. The splendid voices of the choir fill the building from end
to end in the Psalms and canticles; or a boy's voice, singing a solo
verse, floats up quivering and throbbing like a nightingale's song in a
still wood at evening. And then--but I am speaking of "the days that are
no more"--a small figure--unutterably dignified, with a pale, refined,
determined face--in his white robes, his scarlet Doctor of Divinity's
hood, and the crimson ribbon of the Order of the Bath with its golden
jewel round his neck--followed the black-robed verger who carried a
silver mace, up from the stalls, through the two walls of human beings,
to the marble pulpit just outside the altar rails. And every face turned
with eager expectation towards the bowed head, and hung breathless on
the eloquent words that rang like a clarion through the great church;
for it was Arthur Stanley, Dean of Westminster, who was preaching.

But we are lingering in the choir, full, to us who know and love it, of
such keen present interest. I must take you back into the Confessor's
Chapel