ich was tied with whimples under her chin, fastened by a
small diamond brooch.

Mrs Lambert was looked upon as 'quality,' and as she passed into the
cathedral she curtsied with a patronising air to several of her
acquaintances.

It was a long walk for Mrs Lambert from Dowry Square, but she liked to
worship where, as she expressed it, the clergy and congregation were
composed of 'gentry,' and where the visitors at the Hot Wells were to be
seen in a variety of smart costumes.

There was scant reverence for the house of God in these days--days when
the Church was asleep, and the fervour of religious zeal was just
beginning to burn outside her pale, kindled by the teaching of the
Wesleys and Whitfields.

There was a buzz of talk as the congregation reached the choir, and
engagements were made and civilities exchanged with almost as much
freedom as at the door of the pump-room under St Vincent's Rocks.

Bryda had never been inside a large church before, and she was struck
with wonder as she looked up into the vaulted roof and watched the
morning sunshine illuminating the pillars with transient radiance.

Bristol Cathedral is not remarkable for stately proportions, and in the
eye of many is but an insignificant building, which cannot bear
comparison with the noble church of St Mary Redcliffe.

But to Bryda that morning in the cathedral seemed to begin a new era in
her life. The Past, with its stories, the stories that Mr Lambert's
apprentice told her had been found in the muniment room at St Mary's,
seemed to live before her.

The men that had raised those walls and carved the devices on the
pillars, who were they?

Was there no record left, no voice to tell of the labour, and the toil,
and the spirit which had moved them to do their work well?

Bryda's small figure was hidden in the deep pews which then disfigured
the choir, and it was only when she stood up, and was raised above the
ledge of the seat by a green baize hassock, that she could see the
congregation or could be seen by them.

Mrs Lambert sat through the service, fanning herself at intervals and
smelling her salts, though she whispered the prayers after the clergyman
and made the responses in an audible voice.

Bryda was in a dream, and thinking alternately of her grandfather,
Betty, and the young Squire. Poor child, she had never been taught that
the burden of all troubles and anxieties and sorrows can be laid at the
feet of the Father who pities