ull of light and warmth, that
tender glow that falls on autumn days; the trees in the court outside
stood, poised on the brink of sleep, with a yellow pallor tinging their
leaves; the thousand pigeons exulted and wheeled in the intoxicating
air.

The shadowy church was alight with sunshine that streamed through the
clerestory windows on to the heavy pillars, the unevenly paved floor,
and crept down the recumbent figures of noble and bishop from head to
foot. There were a few people present beyond the screen, Sir James and
his daughter in front, watching with a tender reverence the harvesting
of the new priest, as he prepared to gather under his hands the mystical
wheat and grapes of God.

Chris was perfectly practised in his ceremonies; and there was no
anxiety to dissipate the overpowering awe that lay on his soul. He felt
at once natural and unreal; it was supremely natural that he should be
here; he could not conceive being other than a priest; there was in him
a sense of a relaxed rather than an intensified strain; and yet the
whole matter was strange and intangible, as he felt the supernatural
forces gathering round, and surging through his soul.

He was aware of a dusky sunlit space about him, of the glimmer of the
high candles; and nearer of the white cloth, the shining vessels, the
gorgeous missal, and the rustle of the ministers' vestments. But the
whole was shot with an inner life, each detail was significant and
sacramental; and he wondered sometimes at the inaudible vibration that
stirred the silent air round him, as he spoke the familiar words to
which he had listened so often.

He kept his eyes resolutely down as he turned from time to time,
spreading his hands to the people, and was only partly conscious of the
faces watching him from the dark stalls in front and the sunlit nave
beyond. Even the sacred ministers, Dom Anthony and another, seemed to be
little more than crimson impersonal figures that moved and went about
their stately business with deft and gracious hands.

As he began to penetrate more nearly to the heart of the mystery, and
the angels' song before the throne rolled up from the choir, there was
an experience of a yet further retirement from the things of sense. Even
the glittering halpas, and the gleams of light above it where the five
chapels branched behind--even these things became shrouded; there was
just a sheet of white beneath him, the glow of a chalice, and the pale
disc of t