Her heart beat quickly. The rebellious thoughts that will arise
in the most philosophical of us surged in her small heavily
gowned bosom. For her were the gray things, the neutral tinted
skies, the ugly garb, the coarse meats; for them the rainbow, the
ethereal airiness of earthly joys, the bonbons and glaces of the
world. Sister Josepha did not know that the rainbow is elusive,
and its colours but the illumination of tears; she had never been
told that earthly ethereality is necessarily ephemeral, nor that
bonbons and glaces, whether of the palate or of the soul,
nauseate and pall upon the taste. Dear God, forgive her, for she
bent with contrite tears over her worn rosary, and glanced no
more at the worldly glitter of femininity.

The sunbeams streamed through the high windows in purple and
crimson lights upon a veritable fugue of colour. Within the
seats, crush upon crush of spring millinery; within the aisles
erect lines of gold-braided, gold-buttoned military. Upon the
altar, broad sweeps of golden robes, great dashes of crimson
skirts, mitres and gleaming crosses, the soft neutral hue of rich
lace vestments; the tender heads of childhood in picturesque
attire; the proud, golden magnificence of the domed altar with
its weighting mass of lilies and wide-eyed roses, and the long
candles that sparkled their yellow star points above the reverent
throng within the altar rails.

The soft baritone of the Cardinal intoned a single phrase in the
suspended silence. The censer took up the note in its delicate
clink clink, as it swung to and fro in the hands of a fair-haired
child. Then the organ, pausing an instant in a deep, mellow,
long-drawn note, burst suddenly into a magnificent strain, and