ce more she can descry the faint red rays above the snow; and
she can almost see the choristers within the little building; and she
listens to the silver-clear song; and her heart is filled with a strange
new gladness and trust. What must she do to keep it there for ever? By
what signal self-sacrifice--by what devotion of a whole life-time--by
what patient and continuous duty--shall she secure to herself this divine
peace, so that the storms and terrors and trials of the world may sweep
by it powerless and unregarded?

When she rose and blindly followed her sisters, she was all trembling,
and there was a great lump in her throat. She was, indeed, in that
half-hysterical state in which rash resolves are sometimes made that may
determine the course of a human life. But Nan had the sense to know that
she was in this state; and she had enough firmness of character to enable
her to reason with herself. She walked, silent, with her sisters from
the Cathedral to the hotel; and she was reasoning with herself all the
time. She was saying to herself that she had had a glimpse, an
impression of something divinely beautiful and touching, that at some
time or other might influence or even determine her course of life. When
that time came she could remember. But not now--_not now_. She was not
going to resolve to become a Catholic, or join a sisterhood, or give
herself up to the service of the poor, merely because this wonderful
music had filled her heart with emotion. It was necessary that she
should think of something hard and practical--something that would be the
embodiment of common sense. She would force herself to think of that.
And, casting about, she determined to think--about Singing Sal!

It was rather hard upon Sal, who had a touch of vanity, and was quite
conscious of what she deemed the romantic side of her way of life, that
she should be taken as the sort of incarnation of the prosaic.
Nevertheless, all through that _table d'hote_ dinner, Nan kept to her
self-imposed task, and was busying herself about the wages of the
coastguardsmen, and the probable cost of mackerel, and the chances of
Sal's having to face a westerly squall of wind and rain when she was
breasting the steep hill rising from Newhaven. Was Sal singing that
night before the Old Ship? Or was she in the little _cul-de-sac_ near
the Town-hall where the public-house was that the fishermen called in at
on their way home? Nan was apparently dinin