As she turned the corner of the street, the _façade_ of the cathedral came into sight. Cecily let her eyes wander over its galleries, its recesses, its stone carvings, its mysterious little staircases, its strange domes, and pillared loggias. She loved it all, curious and fantastic as it was. She had not meant to go in, but as she passed, she saw that the unfinished doors of the great entrance were open, and far away in the recesses of what looked like a shadowy cave, the candles burned like a row of stars. Cecily paused. A palm-branch laid between two chairs served as a barricade to the scarcely completed entrance, and she went in at the side door, and sat down just within. She knew the interior of the cathedral well, but to-day its likeness to some gigantic work of nature--a great branching sea-cave perhaps--struck her more forcibly than ever. The uncovered brickwork in its ruggedness and simplicity heightened this effect. It was wonderful now with a mosaic of sunshine which, filtering through the small panes of the west windows, covered the brickwork between the mighty arches with a design in gold. Far beneath, the choir itself was in shadow. In shadow also was the great red cross, with the pallid Christ, suspended, as it seemed, in mid-air. A service was going on, and from behind curtains, at the back of the altar, came the sound of singing. The sweet boys’ voices filled the vaulted spaces above the altar as though clouds of incense had melted into song. An unfinished chapel on the right, near the door, was almost concealed by scaffolding, over which hung cloths of sacking, but between the folds of this screen Cecily caught a glimpse of one of the mosaic workers--a girl, evidently mounted upon an improvised platform, for Cecily saw only her dark head high up against an already completed background of mosaic. The chapel was flooded with dusty golden sunlight, in the brightness of which her young face looked vague and indistinct. Her right hand moved swiftly as she worked at the halo round the head of a saint. Through a veil of golden haze, Cecily had a vision of burnished silver and gold, of peacock color and rose, lining the walls of the chapel, and her thoughts were carried back to the mediæval artisans in cathedrals now hoary with age; to the workers of long ago whose busy hands are dust. She thought of possible years to come, when the golden halo of that saint should be dim with age, and, like the myriads of artisans before her, the girl-worker should have passed into oblivion. The service had ceased, but Cecily still sat on, in a sort of dream. She saw in the distance a procession of dim purple-robed figures with white cassocks come down from the choir-loft and disappear. The space before the altar was empty. Silence had fallen, but she did not move.