Mamma was safe. Oh, she was safe. She knew that Mark loved her best. VI. On the cover of Pinnock's Catechism there was a small black picture of the Parthenon. And under it was written: "Abode of gods whose shrines no longer burn." Supposing the candles in St. Mary's Chapel no longer burned? Supposing Barkingside church and Aldborough Hatch church fell to bits and there were no more clergymen? And you only read in history books about people like Mr. Batty and Mr. Propart and their surplices and the things they wore round their necks? Supposing the Christian religion passed away? It excited you to think these things. But when you heard the "Magnificat" in church, or when you thought of Christ hanging so bravely on the cross you were sorry and you stopped thinking. What a pity you couldn't ever go on without having to stop. END OF BOOK TWO BOOK THREE ADOLESCENCE (1876-1879) XII I. Mary went slowly up the lane between the garden wall and the thorn hedge. The air, streaming towards her from the flat fields, had the tang of cold, glittering water; the sweet, grassy smell of the green corn blades swam on it. The young thorn leaves smelt of almonds and of their own bitter green. The five trees stood up, thin and black, in an archway of golden white fire. The green of their young leaves hung about them like an emanation. A skylark swung himself up, a small grey ball, spinning over the tree tops to the arch of the sunset. His song pierced and shook, like the golden white light. With each throb of his wings he shrank, smaller and greyer, a moth, a midge, whirling in the luminous air. A grey ball dropped spinning down. By the gate of the field her sudden, secret happiness came to her. She could never tell when it was coming, nor what it would come from. It had something to do with the trees standing up in the golden white light. It had come before with a certain sharp white light flooding the fields, flooding the room. It had happened so often that she received it now with a shock of recognition; and when it was over she wanted it to happen again. She would go back and back to the places where it had come, looking for it, thinking that any minute it might happen again. But it never came twice to the same place in the same way. Catty was calling to her from the bottom of the lane. She stood still by the gate, not heeding Catty, holding her happiness. When she had turned from the quiet fields it would be gone. II.