received into the Catholic Church. Now it was all
fragrant with flowers and herbs; a pair of tall lilies leaned their
delicate heads towards the altar, as if to listen for the soundless
Coming in the Name of the Lord; underfoot all about the altar lay sprigs
of sweet herbs, rosemary, thyme, lavender, bay-leaves; with white
blossoms scattered over them--a soft carpet for the Pierced Feet; not
like those rustling palm-swords over which He rode to death last week.
The black oak chest that supported the altar-stone was glorious in its
vesture of cloth-of-gold; and against the white-hung wall at the back,
behind the silver candlesticks, leaned the gold plate of the house, to do
honour to the King. And presently there stood there the radiant rustling
figure of the Priest, his personality sheathed and obliterated beneath
the splendid symbolism of his vestments, stiff and chinking with jewels
as he moved.

The glorious Mass of Easter Day began.

"_Immolatus est Christus. Itaque epulemur_," Saint Paul cried from the
south corner of the altar to the two converts. "Christ our Passover is
sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast, but not with the old
leaven."

"_Quis revolvet nobis lapidem?_" wailed the women. "Who shall roll us
away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?"

"And when they looked," cried the triumphant Evangelist, "they saw that
the stone was rolled away; for it was very great"--"_erat quippe magnus
valde_."

Here then they knelt at last, these two come home together, these who had
followed their several paths so resolutely in the dark, not knowing that
the other was near, yet each seeking a hidden Lord, and finding both Him
and one another now in the full and visible glory of His Face--_orto jam
sole_--for the Sun of Righteousness had dawned, and there was healing for
all sorrows in His Wings.

"_Et credo in unam sanctam Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam_"--their
hearts cried all together. "I believe at last in a Catholic Church; one,
for it is built on one and its faith is one; holy, for it is the Daughter
of God and the Mother of Saints; Apostolic, for it is guided by the
Prince of Apostles and very Vicar of Christ."

"_Et exspecto vitam venturi saeculi._" "I look for the life of the world
to come; and I count all things but loss, houses and brethren and sisters
and father and mother and wife and children and lands, when I look to
that everlasting life, and Him Who is the Way to it. _Amen._