side-pockets. The hollow rattle of the wooden dumbbells was heard as
another team made ready to go up on the stage: and in another moment the
excited prefect was hustling the boys through the vestry like a flock of
geese, flapping the wings of his soutane nervously and crying to the
laggards to make haste. A little troop of Neapolitan peasants were
practising their steps at the end of the chapel, some circling their arms
above their heads, some swaying their baskets of paper violets and
curtsying. In a dark corner of the chapel at the gospel side of the altar
a stout old lady knelt amid her copious black skirts. When she stood up a
pink-dressed figure, wearing a curly golden wig and an old-fashioned straw
sunbonnet, with black pencilled eyebrows and cheeks delicately rouged and
powdered, was discovered. A low murmur of curiosity ran round the chapel
at the discovery of this girlish figure. One of the prefects, smiling and
nodding his head, approached the dark corner and, having bowed to the
stout old lady, said pleasantly:

--Is this a beautiful young lady or a doll that you have here, Mrs
Tallon?

Then, bending down to peer at the smiling painted face under the leaf
of the bonnet, he exclaimed:

--No! Upon my word I believe it's little Bertie Tallon after all!

Stephen at his post by the window heard the old lady and the priest
laugh together and heard the boys' murmurs of admiration behind him as
they passed forward to see the little boy who had to dance the
sunbonnet dance by himself. A movement of impatience escaped him. He
let the edge of the blind fall and, stepping down from the bench on
which he had been standing, walked out of the chapel.