some interest, and she was now engaged in watching the scene that
was being enacted about its airy summit. Round the conical
stonework rose a cage of scaffolding against the blue sky, and upon
this stood five men--four in clothes as white as the new erection
close beneath their hands, the fifth in the ordinary dark suit of a
gentleman.

The four working-men in white were three masons and a mason's
labourer. The fifth man was the architect, Mr. Graye. He had been
giving directions as it seemed, and retiring as far as the narrow
footway allowed, stood perfectly still.

The picture thus presented to a spectator in the Town Hall was
curious and striking. It was an illuminated miniature, framed in by
the dark margin of the window, the keen-edged shadiness of which
emphasized by contrast the softness of the objects enclosed.

The height of the spire was about one hundred and twenty feet, and
the five men engaged thereon seemed entirely removed from the sphere
and experiences of ordinary human beings. They appeared little
larger than pigeons, and made their tiny movements with a soft,
spirit-like silentness. One idea above all others was conveyed to
the mind of a person on the ground by their aspect, namely,
concentration of purpose: that they were indifferent to--even
unconscious of--the distracted world beneath them, and all that
moved upon it. They never looked off the scaffolding.

Then one of them turned; it was Mr. Graye. Again he stood
motionless, with attention to the operations of the others. He
appeared to be lost in reflection, and had directed his face towards