tone of pitiful recrimination, the chariot stopped at the
door of the church. He did everything in his power to soothe her;
his gentle and tender tones comforted her, and she nodded to him more
happily, following him into the sanctuary.

Beyond the narthex--the vestibule of the church, where three penitents
were flaying their backs with scourges by the side of a small marble
fountain, and in full view of the crowd--they were forced to part,
as the women were divided from the men by a screen of finely-carved
woodwork.

As Neforis went to her place, she shook her bowed head: she was
meditating on the choice offered her by Orion, of yielding to the
patriarch's commands or to her son's wishes. How gladly would she have
seen her son in bright spirits again. But Benjamin had threatened her
with the loss of all the joys of Heaven, if she should agree to Orion's
alliance with the heretic--and the joys of Heaven to her meant a
meeting, a recognition, for which she would willingly have sacrificed
her son and everything else that was dear to her heart.

Orion assisted at the service in the place reserved for the men of his
family, close to the hekel, or holy of holies, where the altar stood
and the priests performed their functions. A partition, covered with
ill-wrought images and a few gilt ornaments, divided it from the main
body of the church, and the whole edifice produced an impression that
was neither splendid nor particularly edifying. The basilica, which had
once been richly decorated, had been plundered by the Melchites in a
fight between them and the Jacobites, and the impoverished city had
not been in a position to restore the venerable church to anything
approaching its original splendor. Orion looked round him; but could see
nothing calculated to raise his devotion.

The congregation were required to stand all through the service; and
as it often was a very long business, not the women only, behind the
screen, but many of the men supported themselves like cripples on
crutches. How unpleasing, too, were the tones of the Egyptian chant,
accompanied by the frequent clang of a metal cymbal and mingled with the
babble of chattering men and women, checked only when the talk became a
quarrel, by a priest who loudly and vehemently shouted for silence from
the hekel.

Generally the chanted liturgy constituted the whole function, unless the
Lord's Supper was administered; but in these anxious times, for above
a week past