Neither MARGARET nor I possess a libret--, a prayer-book I mean.
However, that is a matter of no consequence, as we are both familiar
with the dialog--, or rather the service. The organist having ended his
overture, the service begins. Not even the wretched method of the
tenor--I refer of course to the clerk--and his miserably affected
execution of the recitative passages, can mar the beauty of the words.
The audience evidently feels their solemn import. The young lady and the
young male person who sit immediately in front of me clasp surreptitious
hands as they bow their heads to repeat the confession that they are
miserable sinners, and she whispers by no means softly to him of the
"frightful bonnets the SMITH girls have on." Presently the recitative of
the clerk is succeeded by a contest in chanting--probably for the
championship--by two rival choruses of shrill-voiced boys, who hurl
alternate verses of the Psalms at one another with the fiercest
intensity. MARGARET is betrayed into an inadvertent competition with
them, by reading a verse aloud, as had been her custom elsewhere, but
the charity children smile aloud at her, and the usher frowns, so she
sits down again with reddened cheeks.

I say to her, "that this choir contest is an excellent feature, one that
is sure to draw." But she answers nothing, and busily reads the
libret--, the psalm, to herself.

Then comes the litany. And here again MARGARET betrays her rural habits,
by repeating audibly the first response, thus encroaching on the
province of the choir-boys, who have now united, and form a fine and
powerful chorus, less picturesque perhaps than the Druidical chorus in
the first act of _Norma_, but quite as religious in its effect. After
which comes a hymn, executed by a soprano, who is really a deserving
little girl, and whom I little expected to find doing the leading