"I should like to come here every day," said Mellicent softly, "every single day. I should like to be a verger, and spend my life in an abbey. I think I could be awfully good if I lived here always. It makes one feel so small and insignificant, that one wouldn't dare to be selfish, and think one's own happiness so important. I can't believe that it was ever built by men--ordinary common working men. It seems like a mountain--a great, wonderful thing that God must have made Himself, and given to His people." Peggy looked at her with bright, astonished eyes. "You dear thing, what a sweet idea! I feel the same about it; but perhaps, after all, it was better that men _should_ have made it. It must have done _them_ good. One cannot imagine that a workman in such a task could remain `common.' I have read charming stories about men who have devoted their whole lives to little pieces of carving or ironwork, to be placed in insignificant corners of old Continental cathedrals. It did not trouble them that their work would not be seen; they were so impressed with the spirit of the place that they simply could not endure to do less than their very, very best, and were willing to remain poor all their lives in order to be able to do it. That's fine! That's grand! None of your miserable scamping spirit there. The place made the men, as well as the men the place." "Yes, yes, that's just what I feel. I'd like to do something for it too, if it were only the dusting," sighed Mellicent, passing her finger along a ledge of wood, and pensively regarding the ridge of dust on her light kid gloves. "I assure you, Peggy, the shivers were running down my back the whole time of that service like a cold-water tap. I was freezing!" "And I was tingling. Oh, to do something big enough--great enough--to be brought here when I die, and be laid among these fine old heroes! Isn't it maddening sometimes to be a woman, and feel penned in, in a wretched little body?" Peggy stood still and faced her companion with kindling eyes. "At this moment, my dear, the spirit of Hercules is within me--I feel as if I could lift mountains, and look at _that_." She held out her hand, staring with intense disfavour at the fragile little wrist. "That's my weapon! If I tried to lift that _bench_, I should sprain my wrist. If I work my brain for several hours on end, I have a sick headache I'm a lion in a cage, dear; a little, miserable, five-foot cage, and it's no use beating at the bars, for I'll never get out;" and Peggy stared miserably at the statue of the "third great Canning" which stood opposite, and sighed her heart out, to think how impossible it seemed that the name of Mariquita Saville would ever be emblazoned by his side.