City and town life -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
It was not a large church, but a gray and solemn impression of dignity
brooded over it. It was dim with light, which fell through stained-glass
memorial windows set deep in the thick stone walls. The silence
which reigned throughout its spaces seemed to Tembarom of a new kind,
different from the silence of the big house. The occasional subdued
rustle of turned prayer-book leaves seemed to accentuate it; the
most careful movement could not conceal itself; a slight cough was
a startling thing. The way, Tembarom thought, they could get things
dead-still in English places!
The chimes, which had been ringing their last summons to the tardy,
slackened their final warning notes, became still slower, stopped.
There was a slight stir in the benches occupied by the infant school. It
suggested that something new was going to happen. From some unseen place
came the sound of singing voices--boyish voices and the voices of men.
Tembarom involuntarily turned his head. Out of the unseen place came a
procession in white robes. Great Scott! every one was standing up! He
must stand up, too. The boys and men in white garments filed into their
seats. An elderly man, also in white robes, separated himself from them,
and, going into his special place, kneeled down. Then he rose and began
to read:
“When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness--”
Tembarom took the open book which Miss Alicia had very delicately pushed
toward him. He read the first words,--that was plain sailing,--then he
seemed to lose his place. Miss Alicia turned a leaf. He turned one also.
“Dearly beloved brethren--”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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