s! And was she not burdened and
friendless and forlorn! Tired, she reached at last, and with no purpose,
the great white cathedral. The door was open. In all this street of
churches and palaces there was no other door open. Perhaps here for a
moment she could find shelter from the world, a quiet corner where she
could rest and think and pray.

She entered. It was almost empty, but down the vista of the great columns
hospitable lights gleamed, and here and there a man or a woman--more
women than men--was kneeling in the great aisle, before a picture, at the
side of a confessional, at the steps of the altar. How hushed and calm
and sweet it was! She crept into a pew in a side aisle in the shelter of
a pillar; and sat down. Presently, in the far apse, an organ began to
play, its notes stealing softly out through the great spaces like a
benediction. She fancied that the saints, the glorified martyrs in the
painted windows illumined by the sunlight, could feel, could hear, were
touched by human sympathy in their beatitude. There was peace here at any
rate, and perhaps strength. What a dizzy whirl it all was in which she
had been borne along! The tones of the organ rose fuller and fuller, and
now at the side entrances came pouring in children, the boys on one side,
the girls on another-school children with their books and satchels, the
poor children of the parish, long lines of girls and of boys, marshaled
by priests and nuns, streaming in--in frolicsome mood, and filling all
the pews of the nave at the front. They had their books out, their
singing-books; at a signal they all stood up; a young priest with his
baton stepped into the centre aisle; he waved his stick, Margaret heard
his sweet tenor voice, and then the whole chorus of children's voices
rising and filling all the house with the innocent concord, but always
above all the penetrating, soaring notes of the priest-strong, clear,
persuading. Was it not almost angelic there at the moment? And how
inspired the beautiful face of the singer leading the children!

Ah, me! it is not all of the world worldly, then. I don't know that the
singing was very good: it was not classical, I fear; not a voice, maybe,
that priest's, not a chorus, probably, that, for the Metropolitan. I hear
the organ is played better elsewhere. Song after song, chorus after
chorus, repeated, stopped, begun again: it was only drilling the little
urchins of the parochial schools--little ragamuffins, I d