meanwhile fetched the cruets from the credence table, and now presented
them in turn, first the wine and then the water. The priest then offered
up on behalf of the whole world the half-filled chalice, which he next
replaced upon the corporal and covered with the pall. Then once again he
prayed, and returned to the side of the altar where the server let a
little water dribble over his thumbs and forefingers to purify him
from the slightest sinful stain. When he had dried his hands on the
finger-cloth, La Teuse--who stood there waiting--emptied the
cruet-salver into a zinc pail at the corner of the altar.

'_Orate, fratres_,' resumed the priest aloud as he faced the empty
benches, extending and reclasping his hands in a gesture of appeal to
all men of good-will. And turning again towards the altar, he continued
his prayer in a lower tone, while Vincent began to mutter a long Latin
sentence in which he eventually got lost. Now it was that the yellow
sunbeams began to dart through the windows; called, as it were, by the
priest, the sun itself had come to mass, throwing golden sheets of light
upon the left-hand wall, the confessional, the Virgin's altar, and the
big clock.

A gentle creak came from the confessional; the Mother of God, in a halo,
in the dazzlement of her golden crown and mantle smiled tenderly with
tinted lips upon the infant Jesus; and the heated clock throbbed out the
time with quickening strokes. It seemed as if the sun peopled the
benches with the dusty motes that danced in his beams, as if the little
church, that whitened stable, were filled with a glowing throng.
Without, were heard the sounds that told of the happy waking of the
countryside, the blades of grass sighed out content, the damp leaves
dried themselves in the warmth, the birds pruned their feathers and took
a first flit round. And indeed the countryside itself seemed to enter