afraid. Should she dare to sleep to-night? No. 'Twas so good to lie awake
thinking; and she had still so much praying to do: her heart was still
far from ready and prepared.

"O God, I am a poor little child and Thou art willing to come to me....
Dear Virgin Mary, make my soul as pure as snow, so that it may become a
worthy dwelling-place for thy Divine Son."

The white dress now lay spread out upon the best bed in the big bedroom
and her wreath too, with all the rest. She already saw herself clad in
all that white wealth like a little queen, standing laughing through her
golden curls! She felt the little knots of paper on her head; to-morrow
they would be released and would open into a cloud of ringlets; and the
people, who would all look at her; and aunt.... Now just to recite her
words once more for to-morrow in church.... And that pretty picture which
the priest would give her.... Was she sure that nothing was forgotten?
Just let her think again: and her candle-cloth? Yes, that was there
too.... What could the time be? The clock was ticking like a heavy chap's
footstep downstairs in the kitchen. It was deathly quiet everywhere. Now
she would lie and wait until the clock struck, so that she might know how
long it would be before it grew light. Her eyes were so tired and all
sorts of things were walking higgledy-piggledy up the white wall....

Then, in the solemn stillness, the nightingale began to sing. Three clear
notes rang out from the echoing coppice; it was like the voice of the
organ in a great church. It sounded over the fields, to die away in a
low, hushed fluting. Now, louder and staccato, like a spiral stair of
metallic sound, the notes rang out, high and low alternately, in
quickening time, a running, rustling and rioting, with long-drawn
pipings, wonderfully sweet, that rose in a storm of bell-like tinklings,