To-day she was early for school, as she had meant to be, for at the church she stopped and sat down in the porch. St. Wilfred’s, Brownbread Street, was only a chapel-of-ease under the mother church of Dallington. It was new-built of sandstone, an unfortunate symbol of that Rock against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. The interior, glimpsed through the open door, was dim and mediæval, the first effect due to the deep tones of the stained-glass windows, where the saints wore robes of crimson and sapphire and passional violet, and the latter to the several dark oil paintings, and the thick gilt tracery of the screen, through which the altar showed richly coloured, with one winking red light before it. The curate-in-charge of Brownbread Street was of mediæval tendencies, and did his best, both in service and sermon, to transport his congregation from the woodbine-age to the age of pilgrimages and monasteries, with the result that, with unmediæval licence, they sought illicit and heretical refreshment in Georgian Bethels and Victorian Tabernacles, where they could sing good Moody and Sankey tunes, instead of treacherous Gregorians and wobbling Plainsong. But Nell loved the low, soft, creeping tones of Gregory’s mode, loved the dimness, the mystery, the faint echo of Sarum ... and if in her love was a personal element which she denied, the church was not less a refuge from the coarse frustrations of her everyday life, such as the Forge was to Mr. Sumption and the Shop had been to Tom. To-day the priest was at the altar, saying the Last Gospel. Nell could just see him from where she sat. He would be out in a couple of minutes. She watched him glide off into the shadows, then she rose and walked down to the little wicket-gate, where the path from the porch met the path from the vestry. There was more colour in her cheeks than usual. Now and then she looked anxiously across the road at the schoolhouse clock, where the large hand was creeping swiftly towards the hour. From the clock her eyes slewed round to the vestry door. At last the handle shook, and out came Mr. Poullett-Smith, walking hurriedly, with his cassock flapping round his legs. He did not seem to see Nell till he had nearly walked into her. “Oh—er—good morning, Miss Beatup. I beg your pardon.” “Good morning, Mr. Poullett-Smith. I—I wanted to tell you I’m so sorry I haven’t finished that book you lent me. I’m afraid I’ve kept it a terrible time.” Her words came with a rush, blurred faintly in the last of a Sussex accent, and her eyes were fixed on his face with an almost childish eagerness which he could scarcely fail to notice. “Oh, please don’t trouble. Keep the book as long as you like—the _Sermons of St. Gregory_, isn’t it?” “Yes—I think they’re wonderful,” breathed Nell, hoping he would never know how difficult she found them to understand. “They are indeed, and so stimulating.”