The little band were standing nearer the trees on the upper side of the
open. They seemed to be praying. Sophia came to the end of the
straggling line they formed, and there halted, doubtful. She did not
advance to claim her sister; she was content to single out her childish
figure as one of a nearer group. She tarried, as a worshipper who,
entering church at prayer-time, waits before walking forward. Alec stood
beside his unknown lady, whose servitor he felt himself to be, and
looked about him with no common interest. About thirty people were clad
in white; there were a few others in ordinary clothes; but it was
impossible to tell just how many of these latter were there or with what
intent they had come. A young man in dark clothes, who stood near the
last comers peered at them very curiously: Alec saw another man sitting
under a tree, and gained the impression, from his attitude, that he was
suffering or perplexed. It was all paltry and pitiful outwardly, and
yet, as he looked about, observing this, what he saw had no hold on his
mind, which was occupied with Cameron's words; and under their
influence, the scene, and the meaning of the scene, changed as his mood
changed in sympathy.

A hymn began to rise. One woman's voice first breathed it; other voices
mingled with hers till they were all singing. It was a simple, swaying
melody in glad cadence. The tree boughs rocked with it on the lessening
wind of the summer night, till, with the cumulative force of rising
feeling, it seemed to expand and soar, like incense from a swinging
censer, and, high and sweet, to pass, at length through the cloudy walls
of the world. The music, the words, of this song had no more of art in
them than the rhythmic cry of waves that ring on some long beach, or the
regular pulsations of the blood that throbs audibly, telling our sudden
joys. Yet, natural as it was, it was far more than any other voice of
nature; for in it was the human soul, that can join itself to other