silver monstrance, which stood glittering high up in a little white satin
house. All of this was clouded in a blue smoke which rose from the holes
of the censer continuously swung to and fro by the arm of a roguish
serving-boy. Far at the back, in the dark, in the black stripes of shadow
cast by the pillars or under the cold bright patch of a lamp or a stand
of votive candles was an old wife, huddled under her hood, with bent
back, praying, and here and there a troop of boys who by turns dropped
their wooden shoes or fought with one another's rosaries.

Near the communion-bench knelt Horieneke, her eyes wide open, full of
brightness and gladness and ecstacy, face to face with Our Lord. The
incense smelt so good and the whole little church was filled with the
trailing chords of the organ and with soft, plaintive Latin chant. Her
lips muttered automatically and the beads glided through her fingers:
numbered Hail Marys like so many roses that were to adorn her heart
against the coming of the great God. Her thoughts wafted her up to Heaven
in that wide temple full of glittering lights where, against the high
walls full of pedestals and niches, the saints, all stiff with gold and
jewels, stood smiling under their haloes and the nimble angels flew all
around on their white-plaster wings. She had something to ask of every
one of them and they received her prayer in turns. When the priest stood
up in his gleaming silver cope, climbed the three steps and took the
Blessed Sacrament in his white hands to give the benediction; when the
bell tinkled and the censer flew on high and the organ opened all its
throats and the glittering monstrance slowly made a cross in the air and
above the heads of the worshippers, she fell forward over her
praying-stool and lay like that, swooning in mute adoration, until all
was silent again, the candles out and she sitting alone there in the dark
with a few black shapes of cloaked women who wandered discreetly from one
station of the Cross to the next. Outside she heard her brothers playing