ays;
and Exeter Cathedral struck me at first sight as curiously low, almost
squat. But as soon as I lived down the first surprise of that effect I
began to love it. The stone of which the Cathedral is built may be cold
and gray; but time and carvings have made it solemn, not depressing. I
stood a long time looking up at the west front, not saying a word; but
something in me was singing a Te Deum. And how you would love the
windows! You used always to say, when we were in Italy and France, that
it was beautiful windows which made you love a cathedral or church, as
beautiful eyes make one love a face.

This Cathedral has unforgettable eyes, and a tremendously long history,
beginning as far back as nine hundred and something, when Athelstan came
to Exeter and drove out the poor British who thought it was theirs. He
built towns, founded a monastery in honour of Saint Mary and Saint
Peter, not having time, I suppose, to do one for each. And afterward the
monastery decided that it would be a cathedral instead. But two hundred
and more years earlier, that disagreeable St. Boniface, who disliked the
Celts so much, went to a Saxon school in Exeter! I wonder what going to
school was like when all the world was young?

I wandered into the Cathedral both mornings to hear the music; and
something about the dim, moonlit look of the interior made me feel
_good_. You will say that's rather a change for me, perhaps, because you
tell me reproachfully, sometimes, after I've thought about the people's
hats and the backs of their blouses in church, that I have only a bowing
acquaintance with religion. I don't know whether I mayn't be doing the
most dreadful wrong every minute by pretending to be Ellaline; but it
was _begun_ for a good purpose, as you know, and you yourself consented.
And though I have twinges sometimes, I did feel good at Exeter. Oh, it
did me heaps of good to _feel_ good! You have to live up to your
feelings, if you feel like that. And I prayed in the Cathedral. I prayed
to be happy. Is that a wrong note for a prayer? I don't believe it is,
if it rings true. Anyway, it makes me feel young and strong to pray,
like Achilles, after he'd rolled on the earth. And I do feel so young
and strong just now, dear! I have to sing in my bath, and when I look
out of the window--also sometimes when I look in the glass, for it seems
to me that I am growing brighter and prettier.

I love to be pretty, because it's such a beautiful world,