"I have choice of position," I said. "Yonder window seems a good
station. You remain here in the choir?"

"Ay," he answered, with a sigh; "the dignity of my calling must be
upheld: wherefore I sit in high places, rubbing elbows with gold
lace, when of the very truth the humility of my spirit is such that I
would feel more at home in the servants' seats or among the negars
that we bought last year."

Had we not been in church I would have laughed, though indeed I
saw that he devoutly believed his own words. He took his seat in
the largest and finest of the chairs behind the great velvet one
reserved for the Governor, while I went and leaned against my
window, and we stared at each other across the flower-decked
building in profound silence, until, with one great final crash, the
bells ceased, the drum stopped beating, and the procession entered.



CHAPTER III IN WHICH I MARRY IN HASTE


THE long service of praise and thanksgiving was well-nigh over
when I first saw her.

She sat some ten feet from me, in the corner, and so in the shadow
of a tall pew. Beyond her was a row of milkmaid beauties, red of
cheek, free of eye, deep-bosomed, and beribboned like Maypoles. I
looked again, and saw - and see - a rose amongst blowzed poppies
and peonies, a pearl amidst glass beads, a Perdita in a ring of