Only a few
wheezing old men crept along alone, counting their beads with their
long bony fingers as they went. The pious company were far too much
occupied with themselves to pay any attention to the two sisters, who
now entered the deserted sanctum. It was dark and gloomy enough within.
A gaunt, fellow in a white surplice, who figured as sacristan, was
sleepily engaged in putting out the candles on the principal altar,
with a rod on which was fastened an extinguisher. When this was done,
he spread a covering over the altar-cloth. And now the fading daylight
found its only entrance through two arched windows, on which the
figures of the Virgin and Joseph with the Child stood out in brilliant
red and blue. Over opposite, where two red columns of porphyry
supported the organ-loft, deep darkness had already settled down, but
faintly broken by the little stumps of tapers before which a few
tireless suppliants continued to read in their little books, though the
regular service had long since come to an end. An iron stand, with
prongs and nails with the sharp ends up, also bore a number of large
and small wax-candles, which had been planted there by the devout as a
modest offering. A reddish light from this fragrant candelabrum, which
stood before one of the side shrines, fell upon the numerous crucifixes
and silver votive offerings near the altars, upon the artificial
flowers that decorated the reliquaries, and upon the dilapidated finery
of the figure of the Madonna standing at the feet of her crucified Son.
It had a singularly weird and depressing effect--the soft crackling of
the lights, the subdued mumbling from those toothless lips, the
sniffing and wheezing of the kneeling old women, and the peculiar smell
of the wax-tapers, incense and snuff, which last article seemed to be
in constant use to prevent the devotional spirit from falling into a
doze.

But all these impressions, which at first almost took away the breath
of the two friends, seemed, from long familiarity, to have lost all
power over the sisters. After sprinkling themselves with holy-water out
of a basin near one of the red columns, they stepped softly up to the
candelabrum, and each fastened her little taper to one of the sharp
points, carefully lighting it before doing so, and then returned to the
columns and knelt down in two of the back pews, one on one side and one
on the other of the middle aisle.

Both appeared to be immediately absorbed in devoti