UNDAY.

Dear sisters:--It seemed to me as if I never could go into that Catholic
meeting-house again; but when Sunday came, E. E. got up so cherk and
bright, that I couldn't say "No" when she wanted me to start with her to
St. Stephen's meeting-house.

"You will hear no more crying and sobbing," says she, "everything will
be bright and beautiful; no more penitential psalms; no more darkness.
Christ has risen!"

My heart rose and swelled, like a frozen apple thrown into hot water,
when I got into the meeting. It was raining like fury out of doors, but
inside everything blazed with glory. The great white altar flashed and
flamed with snow-white candles, bunched like stars in tall candlesticks,
branched off with gold. Two great candles, as thick as your waist,
burned like pillars of snow afire inside, on each side of the steps. Up
amongst the golden candlesticks were two square Maltese crosses--like
the cross we are used to, only one end is cut off short to match the
others--all of white flowers, with just a little red at the tips, as if
a few drops of innocent blood had stained them. Then there were
beautiful half-moons made of milk-white flowers lying on beds of purple
flowers, but there was no other color on that altar.

On an altar which I had not seen in the darkness, when I was there
before, a lamb--as large as life, made out of flowers so white that it
seemed as if they must have grown in heaven itself--stood among the
lights that shone, like crowded stars, out from behind it. Across its
shoulders this lamb carried a cross so blood-red, that it chilled me
through and through.

Above this altar hung a great cross six feet high, which seemed to float
in the air. It was made of gas-drops that quivered into each other, and
struck out colors that the fire seemed to have drank up from the
flowers, and turned into light that was glorious.

Over this cross floated a crown of fire, that seemed to tremble and
shake with every gust of air, as if it had just floated down from
heaven, and, meeting the cross, hovered over it.

I had but just time enough to see all this, when from the other side of
the great altar, came a lot of boys, walking two and two, with white
shoes on their feet, and white dresses--I should have called them frocks
if it had been girls that wore them--all fastened with crimson buttons,
and crimson silk scarfs were thrown across their shoulders. Then came a
lot more, dressed in scarlet frocks and wh