‘I’m sure I don’t know, Mr. Lindsay,’ said Sophy, glancing to Hubert for information. He had been watching Sophy, amused by her wonder at the boy’s enthusiasm. ‘It was built by the Benedictines, I believe,’ said he. ‘I thought nothing could be finer than Glasgow Cathedral till I saw Westminster,’ said Alec simply. ‘Have you a cathedral at Glasgow? I thought you were all Presbyterians in Scotland,’ said Sophy. ‘Oh, a very fine one,’ said Hubert, answering for his cousin--‘small, but a good specimen of its era. And the crypt is particularly good, the finest in Britain, I believe.’ (This gratified Alec immensely.) ‘And what did you think of St. Paul’s? You have seen St. Paul’s, I suppose?’ ‘I liked the outside; at least, it seems very grand. And when I first went under the dome I felt as if I had been on the top of a mountain.’ ‘When you went to the top of the dome, the stone gallery, I suppose you mean,’ said Sophy. ‘No; when I went under the dome.’ ‘I understand you,’ said Hubert. ‘It gives you something of the same sense of space and vastness.’ ‘But there’s very little beauty about it,’ continued Alec. ‘It’s big, and that is about all. It’s nothing to be compared with Westminster.’ ‘Will you give us some music, Sophy?’ asked Hubert, moving towards the piano. Sophy could play well--she had plenty of time for practice--and she chose one of Beethoven’s sonatas. ‘Do you like that?’ she asked at the end of the first movement, turning to Alec. He shook his head. ‘I dare say it’s very beautiful, but I don’t understand what it means in the least. I don’t care for it.’ ‘Frank, at least,’ murmured Sophy to herself, as she turned over the leaves of her music-book. Then she began to play the ‘Moonlight Sonata,’ and at the end of the second movement she stopped again. ‘Do you like that any better?’ she asked. Alec did not answer at once, and she rose from her seat, a little piqued at what she thought his rudeness. But Blake saw that he was trying to steady his voice before replying. ‘Would you be so kind, if you don’t mind the trouble,’ he said in a very low tone, ‘as to play that piece over again, from the beginning?’ Sophy consented, of course, and as she finished she asked Alec if he would care to hear anything else. ‘Not just now, please; anything else would sound coarse after that, wouldn’t it?’ ‘Perhaps you are right,’ said Sophy, with a smile. ‘How happy you must be, to be able to play all that whenever you like!’ exclaimed Alec. ‘Do you think so? It is a very easy passage,’ said Sophy, again a little at a loss how to answer her unconventional guest. ‘Will you give us a song now?’ asked Hubert. But unfortunately Sophy chose one or two drawing-room songs of no musical character whatever; and as Alec thought them very poor, he was so much occupied in trying to find something to say that would not be absolutely rude, that he forgot to thank the performer; and Sophy noticed the omission.