The bells pealed for morning service, the sun shone; as half-past ten approached, little groups of people crossed the Precincts and vanished into the mouth of the great West door. Now were Lawrence and Cobbett in their true glory--Lawrence was in his fine purple robe, the Sunday silk one. He stood at the far end of the nave, just under the choir-screen, waiting for the aristocracy, for whom the front seats were guarded with cords which only he might untie. How deeply pleased he was when some unfortunate stranger, ignorant in the ways of the Cathedral, walked, with startling clatter, up the whole length of the shining nave and endeavoured to penetrate one of these sacred defences! Majestically--staff in hand, he came forward, shook his snow-white head, looking down upon the intrusive one more in sorrow than in anger, spoke no word, but motioned the audacity back down the nave again to the place where Cobbett officiated. Back, clatter, clatter, blushing and confused, the stranger retreated, watched, as it seemed to him, by a thousand sarcastic and cynical eyes. The bells slipped from their jangling peal into a solemn single note. The Mere People were in their places at the back of the nave, the Great Ones leaving their entrance until the very last moment. There was a light in the organ-loft; very softly Brockett began his voluntary--clatter, clatter, clatter, and the School arrived, the small boys, swallowed by their Eton collars, first, filing into their places to the right of the screen, then the middle boys, a little indifferent and careless, then the Fifth and Sixth in their "stick-up" collars, haughty and indifferent indeed. Dimly, on the other side of the screen, the School boys in their surplices could be seen settling into their places between the choir and the altar. A rustling of skirts, and the aristocracy entered in ones and twos from the side doors that opened out of the Cloisters. For some of them--for a very few--Lawrence had his confidential smile. For Mrs. Sampson, for instance--for Mrs. Combermere, for Mrs. Ryle and Mrs. Brandon. A very special one for Mrs. Brandon because of his high opinion of her husband. She was nothing very much--"a mean little woman," he thought her --but the Archdeacon had married her. That was enough.