ang out a voice--Brother Royle's.

By happy chance at the edge of the group stood tall good-natured
Alderman Chope, who had impersonated Alfred the Great. The Brethren
begged his shield from him and mounted Corona upon it, all holding it
by its rim while they chanted--

"The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their hopes and fears,
Are carried downward by the flood
And lost in following years.

"Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

"O God! our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come;
Be Thou our guard while troubles last
And our perpetual home!"

Corona lifted her voice and sang with the old men; while among the
excited groups the swallows skimmed boldly over the meadow, as they
had skimmed every summer's evening before and since English History
began.

CONCLUSION.

Brother Copas walked homeward along the river-path, his gaunt hands
gathering his Beauchamp robe behind him for convenience of stride.
Ahead of him and around him the swallows circleted over the
water-meads or swooped their breasts close to the current of Mere.
Beside him strode his shadow, and lengthened as the sun westered in a
haze of potable gold. In the haze swam evening odours of mints,
grasses, herbs of grace and virtue named in old pharmacopoeias as
most medicinal for man, now forgotten, if not nameless.

The sunset breathed benediction. To many who walked homeward that
evening it seemed in that benediction to enwrap the centuries of
history they had so feverishly been celebrating, and to fold them
softly away as a garment. But Brother Copas heeded it not. He was
eager to reach St. Hospital and carry report to his old friend.

"Upon my word, it was an entire success. . . . I have criticised the
Bambergers enough to have earned a right to admit it. In the end a
sort of sacred fury took hold of the whole crowd, and in the midst of
it we held her up--Corona--on a shield--"

Brother Bonaday lay panting. He had struggled through an attack
sharper than any previous one--so much sharper that he knew the end
to be not far distant, and only asked for the next to be swift.

"--And she was just splendid," said Brother Copas. "She had that
unconscious way of stepping out of the past, with a crown on her
head. My God, old friend, if I had that child for a daughter-