o their masters.

Esther had always affected the balcony: there the air was comparatively
fresh, and on fine days there was a glimpse of blue sky, and a
perspective of sunny red tiles, where brown birds fluttered and cats
lounged and little episodes arose to temper the tedium of endless
invocation: and farther off there was a back view of a nunnery, with
visions of placid black-hooded faces at windows; and from the distance
came a pleasant drone of monosyllabic spelling from fresh young voices,
to relieve the ear from the monotony of long stretches of meaningless
mumbling.

Here, lost in a sweet melancholy, Esther dreamed away the long gray day,
only vaguely conscious of the stages of the service--morning dovetailing
into afternoon service, and afternoon into evening; of the heavy-jowled
woman behind her reciting a jargon-version of the Atonement liturgy to a
devout coterie; of the prostrations full-length on the floor, and the
series of impassioned sermons; of the interminably rhyming poems, and
the acrostics with their recurring burdens shouted in devotional frenzy,
voice rising above voice as in emulation, with special staccato phrases
flung heavenwards; of the wailing confessions of communal sin, with
their accompaniment of sobs and tears and howls and grimaces and
clenchings of palms and beatings of the breast. She was lapped in a
great ocean of sound that broke upon her consciousness like the waves
upon a beach, now with a cooing murmur, now with a majestic crash,
followed by a long receding moan. She lost herself in the roar, in its
barren sensuousness, while the leaden sky grew duskier and the twilight
crept on, and the awful hour drew nigh when God would seal what He had
written, and the annual scrolls of destiny would be closed, immutable.
She saw them looming mystically through the skylight, the swaying forms
below, in their white grave-clothes, oscillating weirdly backwards and
forwards, bowed as by a mighty wind.

Suddenly there fell a vast silence; even from without no sound came to
break the awful stillness. It was as if all creation paused to hear a
pregnant word.

"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One!" sang the cantor
frenziedly.

And all the ghostly congregation answered with a great cry, closing
their eyes and rocking frantically to and fro:

"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One!"

They seemed like a great army of the sheeted dead risen to testify to
the Unity. The