meon had listened or lifted their voice to its
anthems--had aspired for the wings of a dove, to fly away and be at
rest. Where now were all their emotions? He entered by a side-door
of the western porch. The immense, solemn nave, if it did not catch
his thoughts aloft, at least hushed them in awe. To Mr. Simeon
Merchester Cathedral was a passion, nearer, if not dearer, than wife
or children.

He had arrived ten minutes ahead of the appointed time. As he walked
towards the great organ he heard a child's voice, high-pitched and
clear, talking behind the traceries of the choir screen. He supposed
it the voice of some irreverent chorister, and stepping aside to
rebuke it, discovered Corona and Brother Copas together gazing up at
the coffins above the canopy.

"And is King Alfred really up there?--the one that burnt the cakes?--
and if so, which?" Corona was asking, too eager to think of grammar.

Brother Copas shrugged his shoulders.

"What's left of him is up there somewhere."

'Here are sands, ignoble things
Dropped from the ruined sides of kings.'

"--But the Parliament troopers broke open the coffins and mixed the
dust sadly. The Latin says so. '_In this and the neighbouring
chests_' (or caskets, as you say in America), '_confounded in a time
of Civil Fury, reposes what dust is left of_--' Ah, good afternoon,
Mr. Simeon! This young lady has laid forcible hands on me to give
her an object-lesson in English history. Do you, who know ten times
more of the Cathedral than I, come to my aid."

"If you are looking for King Alfred," answered Mr. Simeon,
beaming on Corona through his glasses, "there's a tradition that his
dust lies in the second chest to the right . . . a tradition only.
No one really knows."

Corona shifted her position some six paces to the right, and tilted
her gaze up at the coffer as though she would crick her neck.

"Aye, missie"--Mr. Simeon still beamed--"they're up there, the royal
ones--Dane and Norman and Angevin; and not one to match the great
Anglo-Saxon that was father of us all."

Brother Copas grunted impatiently.

"My good Simeon, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! God forbid
that one should decry such a man as Alfred was. But the pedantry of
Freeman and his sect, who tried to make 'English' a conterminous name
and substitute for 'Anglo-Saxon,' was only by one degree less
offensive than the ignorance of your modern journalist who degrades
Englishmen by wri