nd be drowned.' I told him that I knew better,
because people couldn't build cafederals on water. He told me that
was the way they had built ours, and he held my hand for me to have a
look. He was right, too. The pit was half-full of water.
He said that unless we looked sharp the whole Cafederal would come
down on our heads. . . . I don't think it's safe for me to go to
school any more, do you?" insinuated small Agatha.

Now it chanced that Mr. Simeon had to visit the Greycoats that very
afternoon. He had written a little play for the children--boys and
girls--to act at Christmas. It was not a play of the sort
desiderated by Mrs. Simeon--the sort to earn forty thousand pounds in
royalties; nor, to speak accurately, had he written it. He had in
fact patched together a few artless scenes from an old Miracle Play--
_The Life of Saint Meriadoc_--discovered by him in the Venables
Library; and had tinkered out some rhymes (the book being a prose
translation from the Breton original). "A poor thing," then, and
very little of it his own--but Miss Champernowne opined that it would
be a novelty, while the children enjoyed the rehearsals, and looked
forward to the fun of "dressing-up."

Rehearsals were held twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in the
last hour of the afternoon session. This afternoon, on his way to
the school, Mr. Simeon found that Agatha had indeed spoken truth.
Five or six men were busy, digging, probing, sounding, around
a large hole close under the northeast corner of the Lady Chapel.
The foreman wore a grave face, and in answer to Mr. Simeon's
inquiries allowed that the mischief was serious; so serious that the
Dean and Chapter had sent for a diver to explore the foundations and
report. The foreman further pointed out certain ominous cracks in
the masonry overhead.

Just then the great clock chimed, warning Mr. Simeon away. . . .
But the peril of his beloved Cathedral so haunted him that he arrived
at the school-door as one distraught.

Rehearsal always took place in the girls' schoolroom, the boys coming
in from their part of the building to clear the desks away and
arrange them close along the walls. They were busy at it when he
entered. He saw: but--

"He heeded not--his eyes
Were with his heart,"

And that was in the Close outside--anthi, phile en patridi gaie.

From the start he allowed the rehearsal to get hopelessly out of
hand. The children took charge; they g