they are playing in the church lane like little Christians, safe from
even that lad and lass yonder!"

A yell of fighting from the little Christians mingled with their hoots
at choir boys gathering for the ten o'clock service in St. Bat's. When
Mrs. Blake and her friend saw this preparation, they withdrew their
dissenting heads from the arcades in order not to countenance what might
go on below.

Minute followed minute, and the little bell struck the four quarters.
Then the great bell boomed out ten;--the bell which had given signal for
lighting the funeral piles of many a martyr, on Smithfield, directly
opposite the church. Organ music pealed; choir boys appeared from their
robing-room beside the entrance, pacing two and two as they chanted. The
celebrant stood in his place at the altar, and antiphonal music rolled
among the arches; pierced by the dagger voice of a woman in the arcades,
who called after the retreating butcher's boy to look sharp, and bring
her the joint she ordered.

Eagle sprang up and dragged the arm of the unmoving boy in the north
transept. There was a weeping tomb in the chancel which she wished to
show him,--lettered with a threat to shed tears for a beautiful memory
if passers-by did not contribute their share; a threat the marble duly
executed on account of the dampness of the church and the hardness of
men's hearts. But it was impossible to disturb a religious service. So
she coaxed the boy, dragging behind her, down the ambulatory beside the
oasis of chapel, where the singers, sitting side-wise, in rows facing
each other, chanted the Venite. A few worshipers from the close, all of
them women, pattered in to take part in this daily office. The smithy
hammers rang under organ measures, and an odor of cooking sifted down