ously. Without losing a word
that the preacher uttered, Annie watched the process intently. What
made it ludicrous was, that the man, having taken up his weapon with
the air of a pious executioner, and having tipped the chandelier
towards him, began, from the operation of some occult sympathy, to open
the snuffers and his own mouth simultaneously; and by the time the
black devouring jaws of the snuffers had reached their full stretch,
his own jaws had become something dragonlike and hideous to
behold--when both shut with a convulsive snap. Add to this that he was
long-sighted and often missed a candle several times before he
succeeded in snuffing it, whereupon the whole of the opening and
shutting process had to be repeated, sometimes with no other result
than that of snuffing the candle out, which had then to be pulled from
its socket and applied to the next for re-illumination. But nothing
could be farther from Annie's mood than a laugh or even a smile, though
she gazed as if she were fascinated by the snuffers, which were
dreadfully like one of the demons in a wood-cut of the Valley of the
Shadow of Death in the _Pilgrim's Progress_ without boards, which had
belonged to her father.

When all had ceased--when the prayer, the singing, and the final
benediction were over, Annie crept out into the dark street as if into
the Outer Darkness. She felt the rain falling upon something hot, but
she hardly knew that it was her own cheeks that were being wetted by
the heavy drops. Her first impulse was to run to Alec and Curly, put
her arms about their necks, and entreat them to flee from the wrath to
come. But she could not find them to-night. She must go home. For
herself she was not much afraid; for there was a place where prayer was
heard as certainly as at the mercy-seat of old--a little garret room
namely, with holes in the floor, out of which came rats; but with a
door as well, in at which came the prayed-for cat.

But alas for poor Annie and her chapel-going! As she was creeping
slowly up from step to step in the dark, the feeling came over her that
it was no longer against rats, nor yet against evil things dwelling in
the holes and corners of a neglected human world, that she had to pray.
A spiritual terror was seated on the throne of the universe, and was
called God--and to whom should she pray against it? Amidst the
darkness, a deeper darkness fell.

She knelt by her bedside, but she could not lift up her heart; fo