expedition quite as magnificent as that to St. Mary's Minster.
Mr. Froggatt was almost as eager about this pleasure for 'his young people,' as he called them, as they could be. He came in early to drive Geraldine to the station, and looked with grandfatherly complacency at the four sisters, who had ventured on the extravagance of white pique and black ribbons, and in their freshness looked as well-dressed as any lady in the land.
He entertained Cherry all the way with his admiration of Wilmet's beauty and industry, and when arrived at the station, waited there with her till first the three girls came up with Alice Knevett, white with pink ribbons, and then the choir arrived, marching with the banner with the rood of St. Oswald before them, each with a blue satin bow in his button-hole, and the bag with his surplice under his arm, the organist, the schoolmaster, and the two curates, bringing up the rear. Mr. Bevan, my Lady, and Miss Price, whirled up in the carriage, the omnibus discharged the friends of the choir, and two waggon loads of musical talent from the villages came lumbering and cheering in! The very train roared and shrieked in with a sound of cheering from its vertebrae, and banners were projecting from the windows, amid nodding heads and waving handkerchiefs of all colours; the porters ran about distracted, and Geraldine began to be alarmed, and to think of the old woman of Servia, but behold, Felix had her on one side, Mr. Froggatt on the other, a solid guard held open the door, and protected her from the rush, and before she well knew what they were doing with her, she was lying on the seat of the carriage, with her sisters and Alice all in a row in front of her; the recently crowded platform was empty of all but a stray porter, the stationmaster, and Mr. Froggatt kissing his hand, and promising to come and fetch her on her return.
The train seemed hardly to have attained its full speed before it slackened again, and another merry load was disposed of within its joints. Another start, another arrival; and before the motion was over, a flash of sunny looks had glanced before the sisters' eyes. There was Lance, perfectly radiant, under his square trencher cap- hair, eyes, cheeks, blue bow, boots, and all, seeming to sparkle with delight as he snatched open the door.
'Hurrah! there they are. Give her out to me, Wilmet!' (as if she had been a parcel).
'Stay, wait for Felix. You can't--'
Felix rushed up from his colleagues of the choir, and Geraldine was set on her foot and crutch. 'Come along! I've got Ball's chair for you, and Bill Harewood is sitting in it for fear any one should bone it. Where's your ticket?'
'Lance, take care! Don't take her faster than she can go!' as he whisked her over the platform; and Wilmet was impeded by the seeking for Alice's parasol and Angela's cloak. They were quite out of sight when Lance had dragged Cherry through the crowd at the door, and brought her to the wheeled chair just in time to find Bill Harewood glaring out of it like the red planet Mars, and asseverating that he was the lame young lady it was hired for.
In went Geraldine, imploring to wait for Wilmet, but all in vain; off went the chair, owner and escort alike in haste, and she was swept along, with Lance and Will with a hand holding either side of the chair, imparting breathless scraps of information, and exchanging remarks: 'There goes the Archdeacon.' 'The Thorpe choir is not come, and Miles is mad about it.' 'That's the Town Hall.' 'There's where Jack licked a cad for bullying.' 'There's a cannon-ball of Oliver Cromwell's sticking out of that wall.' 'That's the only shop fit to get gingerbeer at!' 'That old horse in that cab was in the Crimea.' 'We come last in the procession, and if you see a fellow like a sheep in spectacles, that's Shapcote.' 'Hurrah! what a stunning lot! where is it from?' 'Bembury? My eyes, if that big fellow doesn't mean to bawl us all down. Down that way-that's the palace. Whose carriage is it stopping there! Now, here's the Close.'
'Is that the Cathedral? Oh!'
'You may well say so! No, not that way.' And on rattled poor amazed Geraldine through an archway, under some lime trees, round a corner, round another comer, to another arched doorway, with big doors studded with nails, with a little door for use cut out of one of the big ones.
'You must get out here,' said Lance, 'we are close by,' and he helped her out, and paid and thanked the man with the chair. 'Here's our domain,' he continued, as he introduced Cherry through the open doorway into a small flagged court, with two houses, gray and old- fashioned, forming one side, and on the other an equally old long low building with narrow latticed arched windows. Opposite to the entrance was a handsome buttressed Gothic-looking edifice, behind which rose the gable of the north transept of the Cathedral, beautiful with a rose window, and farther back, far, far above, the noble tower.
Already everything was very wonderful to Geraldine. 'That's our kennel,' said Lance, pointing to the low buildings to the right. 'School's behind; but we boarders are put up in one of the old monks' dormitories, between court and cloister.'
'Is it really!' exclaimed Geraldine.
'So my father says,' said Will. 'Here's our door.' Another stone- arched passage, almost dark, with doors opening on either side, seemed common to both houses; and Will was inviting them to enter, but Lance held back. 'No time,' he said; 'better call your father.'
'The others,' sighed Geraldine.
'Bother the others! That's right: here he is!'
'Halloo, Father!' cried Will; 'we've got Cherry.'
'By which unceremonious designation I imagine you to mean to introduce Miss Underwood,' said a figure, appearing from beneath the archway, in trencher cap, surplice, and hood, with white hair, and a sort of precision and blandness that did not at all agree with Cherry's preconceived notions of the Harewood household. 'I am very glad to see you. My ladies, as usual, are unready. Will you have a glass of wine? No?-What do you say, Lancelot?- Very well, we will take you in at once. You will not object to waiting there, and this is the quiet time. -Boys, you ought to be with the choir.'
'Oceans of time, Dad,' coolly answered Will; 'none of the fellows up there are under weigh.'
Mr. Harewood offered his arm, but perceived that Cherry preferred Lance and her crutch; advancing to the door opposite that by which they had entered, he unlocked it, and Geraldine found herself passing through a beauteous old lofty chamber, with a groined Tudor roof, all fans, and pendants, and shields; tall windows stained with armorial bearings, parchment charters and blazoned genealogies against the walls, and screens upon screens loaded with tomes of all ages, writing-tables and chairs here and there, and glass-topped tables containing illuminations and seals. 'Here is my paradise,' said the librarian, smiling.
'I think it must be,' said Geraldine, with a long breath of wonder and admiration.
'Ah! would you not like to have a good look, Cherry?' said Lance. 'That's Richard Coeur de Lion's seal in there.'
'Don't begin about it-don't set him on,' whispered Willie, with a sign of his head towards his father, who was fitting the key into the opposite door, 'or we shall all stay here for the rest of the day.'
This low door open, Mr. Harewood and the boys bared their heads as they entered, and Geraldine felt the strange solemn sensation of finding herself in a building of vast height and majesty, full of a wonderful stillness, as though the confusion of sounds she had been in so recently were far, far off.
'Where now, Lancelot?' asked Mr. Harewood, in a hushed voice; 'do you want me any further?'
'No, thank you, sir, I'll just take her across the choir to Mr. Miles, and then join the rest of us at the vestry.'
'Good-bye for the present, then,' said Mr. Harewood kindly. 'You are in safe hands. Your brother comes round every one.
Through the side-screen, into the grandly beautiful choir, arching high above, with stall-work and graceful canopies below, and rich glass casting down beams of coloured light-all for 'glory and for beauty,' thought Geraldine.
'You must not stop; you must look when you are settled. That's my side,' pointing to one of the choristers' desks. 'It will be only we that sing in here; the congregation is in the nave-a perfect sea of chairs. I'll come for you when it is over. Here is Mr. Miles. My sister, sir.'
A pale gentleman in spectacles, with a surplice and beautiful blue hood, was here addressed. He too greeted Geraldine, very shyly but kindly, and she found herself expected to ascend some alarming- looking stone steps. The organ was on the choir screen, and to the organist's little private gallery was she to ascend. It was a difficult matter, and she had in her trepidation despairingly recognised the difference between Lance's good will and Felix's practised strength; but at last she was landed in an admirable little cushioned nook, hidden by two tall painted carved canopies-exactly over the Dean's head, her brother told her-and where, as she sat sideways, she could see
