t
altogether their fault--the cassocks--you know--they're only in two
sizes. They trip up. I'm the Ceremonarius, and I can tell you I have my
work cut out. Of course I ought to have been helping to-night. But I
wasn't sure I could get away from the Bank in time. I hope
Wilson--that's our second thurifer--won't go wrong in the Magnificat. He
usually does."

The bell stopped: there was a momentary hush for the battling wind to
moan louder than ever: then the organ began to play and from the
sacristy came the sound of a chanted Amen. Choristers appeared followed
by two or three of the clergy, and when these had taken their places a
second procession appeared, with boys in scarlet and lace and a tinkling
censer and a priest in a robe of blood-red velvet patterned with dull
gold.

"That's the new cope," whispered the stranger. "Fine work, isn't it?"

"Awfully decent," Michael whispered back.

"All I hope is the acolytes will remember to put out the candles
immediately after the Third Collect. It's so important," said the
stranger.

"I expect they will," whispered Michael encouragingly.

Then the Office began, and Michael, waiting for a spiritual experience,
communed that night with the saints of God, as during the Magnificat his
soul rose to divine glories on the fumes of the aspiring incense. There
was a quality in the voices of the boys which expressed for him more
beautifully than the full Sunday choir could have done, the pathos of
human praise and the purity of his own surrender to Almighty God. The
splendours of the Magnificat died away to a silence and one of the
clergy stepped from his place to read the Second Lesson. As he came down
the chancel steps Michael's new friend whispered:

"The censing of the altar was all right. It's really a good thing
sometimes to be a spectator--you know--one sees more."

Michael nodded a vague assent. Already the voice of the lector was
vibrating through the church.

_In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first
day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the
sepulchre._

Michael thought to himself how he had come to St. Bartholomew's when
Sunday was over. That was strange.

_His countenance was like lightning and his raiment white as snow:
and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men._

"I wish that boy Wiggins wouldn't fidget with his zuchetto," Michael's
friend observed.

_An