‘“O Paradise! O Paradise!”’ Poor Susan feels as if ‘O Purgatory!’ would be much nearer it, so far as she is concerned. She would have stopped the hymn there and then if she could, feeling utterly upset and nervous. But it would take a great many feelings to stop a church service when it is once in full swing; and the hymn goes on gaily in spite of Susan’s despair. It reaches, indeed, a most satisfactory ending, in spite of a slight contretemps occasioned by the one unlucky Protestant maid belonging to the Rectory, called Sarah. Poor Sarah has this day for the first time put on a hat of which a brilliant magenta feather is the principal feature. Hitherto it has not caught Miss Barry’s eye—a wonder in itself even greater than the magenta feather, as this estimable spinster, with a view to keeping the servants’ moral conduct perfect, has elected that they shall sit on a bench in the big square Rectory pew right before her and her nephew and nieces. It is at the beginning of the first verse that Miss Barry’s eye lights on the monstrosity in Sarah’s hat. Feathers and flowers are abominations in Miss Barry’s eyes when worn by the ‘common people,’ as she calls those beneath her in the social scale. How dare that impertinent girl come to church with such an immodest ornament on her head! What on earth is the world coming to? She must, she will, speak to her; impossible to let her enjoy that feather another second. If she can’t speak, she can at all events sing at her. She darts across the pew, and, leaning over Sarah’s shoulder, sings piercingly into her ear: “‘O Paradise! O Paradise.” Sarah, what do you mean?’ (Rising note.) ‘How dare’ (prolonged shriek on top note) ‘you wear that feather, girl! Where did you get that hat?’ She is simply screaming this to the hymn-tune. You all know the hymn, of course, and can understand how Miss Barry’s voice rose to a shrill yell in the ‘dare.’ Sarah, with a convulsive start, turns round. It seems to her that this loud voice shouting in her ear must be heard by every other soul in the church; and frightened, ashamed, she sinks down into her seat, and prepares to hide herself and the magenta feather behind her Prayer-book. But at this breach of church etiquette Miss Barry grows even more incensed, and proceeds to rouse the wretched girl to a sense of her further iniquity by well-directed and vigorous punches and prods of her Prayer-book on her back. Whereon Sarah, dissolved in tears, rises to her feet once more. She is evidently on the verge of hysterics, and would have undoubtedly given way to them, but that at this moment Betty, who is afraid of nothing under heaven, lays her hand on Miss Barry’s arm, and forcibly pulls her back to her accustomed place.