e church behind and the wind-swept yew trees which had
somehow managed to survive the winter storms. The grass had been mown in
the churchyard, and filled the air with a fragrant scent of hay; a big
bumble-bee buzzed noisily over a bed of wild thyme under the wall, and a
swallow was feeding a row of young ones upon the ridged roof of the
sexton's cottage. In the great stretch of blue above, the little fleecy
clouds formed themselves into snowy mountains with valleys and lakes
between, a kind of dream country in purest white, and Isobel wondered
whether, if one could sail straight on to the very verge of the distance
where sea and sky seemed to meet, one could slip altogether over the
invisible line that bounds the horizon, and find oneself floating in
that cloudland region.

"It's like the edge of heaven," she thought. "I think the saints must
live there, and the cherubim and seraphim much farther and higher
up--right in the blue part. One could never see _them_; but perhaps
sometimes on a day like this the saints might come back a little way out
of the light and nearer to the earth where they used to live, and if one
looked very hard one might manage to catch a glimpse of them just where
the sun's shining on that white piece."

"O blest communion! fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle; they in glory shine!"

came wafted through the open church door, the sound of the singing,
rather far off and subdued, seeming to join in harmony with the lap of
the waves, the hum of the bees, the cries of the sea-gulls, the
twittering of the swallows, and all the other glad voices of nature. It
looked such a beautiful, joyful, delightful, glorious world that Isobel
sat very quietly for a time just drinking in the sweet air and the
sunshine, and feeling, without exactly knowing why, that it was good to
be there.

"Are you asleep?" said Belle at last, in an injured tone; "you haven't
spoken to me for at least five minutes. I'm sure it must be getting near
tea-time. Let us go now."

"All right," said Isobel, recalling herself with a start--she had almost
forgotten Belle's existence for the moment. "It's so nice on these
steps, one feels as if one were up above everything. It's like being on
the roof of the world. Perhaps that was why St. Alcuin and the monks
built the abbey here; it seems so very near to the sky."

"What a queer girl you are sometimes!" said Belle, looking at her
curiously; "I believe you're fond of old ch