n ecclesiastical warehouse, which was
a perfect seed-bed of idolatry, and she was no doubt abandoned to
mummeries on that account--if not quite a Papist. (Miss Drusilla
Fawley was of her date, Evangelical.)

As Jude was rather on an intellectual track than a theological, this
news of Sue's probable opinions did not much influence him one way or
the other, but the clue to her whereabouts was decidedly interesting.
With an altogether singular pleasure he walked at his earliest spare
minutes past the shops answering to his great-aunt's description; and
beheld in one of them a young girl sitting behind a desk, who was
suspiciously like the original of the portrait. He ventured to enter
on a trivial errand, and having made his purchase lingered on the
scene. The shop seemed to be kept entirely by women. It contained
Anglican books, stationery, texts, and fancy goods: little plaster
angels on brackets, Gothic-framed pictures of saints, ebony crosses
that were almost crucifixes, prayer-books that were almost missals.
He felt very shy of looking at the girl in the desk; she was so
pretty that he could not believe it possible that she should belong
to him. Then she spoke to one of the two older women behind the
counter; and he recognized in the accents certain qualities of his
own voice; softened and sweetened, but his own. What was she doing?
He stole a glance round. Before her lay a piece of zinc, cut to
the shape of a scroll three or four feet long, and coated with a
dead-surface paint on one side. Hereon she was designing or
illuminating, in characters of Church text, the single word

A L L E L U J A

"A sweet, saintly, Christian business, hers!" thought he.

Her presence here was now fairly enough explained, her skill in
work of this sort having no doubt been acquired from her father's
occupation as an ecclesiastical worker in metal. The lettering on
which she was engaged was clearly intended to be fixed up in some
chancel to assist devotion.

He came out. It would have been easy to speak to her there and then,
but it seemed scarcely honourable towards his aunt to disregard her
request so incontinently. She had used him roughly, but she had
brought him up: and the fact of her being powerless to control him
lent a pathetic force to a wish that would have been inoperative as
an argument.

So Jude gave no sign. He would not call upon Sue just yet. He had
other reasons against doing so when he had wal