rdness, to caprice, to disorder,
there was an almost grievous lack of this _rhythmic_ quality. In the
sure and seemly progression of the months, was there not for him a
desirable exemplar, a needed corrective? He was so liable to moods in
which he rebelled against the performance of some quite simple duty,
some appointed task--moods in which he said to himself "H-ng it! I
will not do this," or "Oh, b-th-r! I shall not do that!" But it was
clear that Nature herself never spoke thus. Even as a passenger in
a frail barque on the troublous ocean will keep his eyes directed
towards some upstanding rock on the far horizon, finding thus inwardly
for himself, or hoping to find, a more stable equilibrium, a deeper
tranquillity, than is his, so did Percy daily devote a certain portion
of his time to quiet communion with the almanac.

There were times when he was sorely tempted to regret a little that
some of the feasts of the Church were "moveable." True, they moved
only within strictly prescribed limits, and in accordance with certain
unalterable, wholly justifiable rules. Yet, in the very fact that
they did move, there seemed--to use an expressive slang phrase of the
day--"something not quite nice." It was therefore the fixed feasts
that pleased Percy best, and on Christmas Day, especially, he
experienced a temperate glow which would have perhaps surprised those
who knew him only slightly.

By reason of the athletic exercises of his earlier years, Percy had
retained in middle life a certain lightness and firmness of tread;
and this on Christmas morning, between his rooms and the Cathedral,
was always so peculiarly elastic that he might almost have seemed to
be rather running than walking. The ancient fane, with its soarings
of grey columns to the dimness of its embowed roof, the delicate
traceries of the organ screen, the swelling notes of the organ, the
mellow shafts of light filtered through the stained-glass windows
whose hues were as those of emeralds and rubies and amethysts, the
stainless purity of the surplices of clergy and choir, the sober
richness of Sunday bonnets in the transept, the faint yet heavy
fragrance exhaled from the hot-water pipes--all these familiar things,
appealing, as he sometimes felt, almost too strongly to that sensuous
side of his nature which made him so susceptible to the paintings of
Mr. Leader, of Sir Luke Fildes, were on Christmas morning more than
usually affecting by reason of that note o