"Well," he said again, "you are the cheekiest and the most amusing woman in town. You'll shock all your relations, but they must be getting hardened to that by this time." Whether the relatives were on this occasion more or less shocked than upon others was not a question to which Elsie devoted any especial thought. She gave her luncheon, and all the world knew that she had invited Mrs. Strathmore to meet Marion Delegass on the day of the consecration. Mrs. Strathmore was so enraged that she talked flames and fury, even going so far as to wonder whether there were not some possibility of excommunication; so that her tormentor was enchanted with the success of her revenge. The consecration took place on a beautiful June day, and was as imposing a function in its line as Boston had ever seen. Trinity was crowded to overflowing, and if the ceremony was less imposing than would have been the induction of a Catholic bishop, it was impressive and dignified. The sunlight filtering through the windows of stained glass splashed fantastic colors over the long surpliced train which wound through the aisles down to the chancel, singing processionals of joyous hope; the air was full of the sense of solemn meaning; the organ pealed; the noble words of the fine old ritual spoke to the hearts of the hearers, and carried their message of a faith which took hold upon the unseen. Above all the circumstance, the form, the conventions, the creeds, rose the spirit of the worshipers, uplifted by the thrilling realization of the outpouring of the soul of humanity before the unknown eternal. Maurice had accompanied Mrs. Staggchase and Miss Morison to the ceremony. It had been his impulse not to go, but his cousin urged it, and it needed little to induce him to go to any place where Berenice was, even though it were a church. He went with some secret misgiving lest the service should move him more than he wished; but to his satisfaction he found that while he felt aesthetic pleasure, he was inclined to be critical about the doctrine of the ritual. His satisfaction, he reflected, would have been thought amusing by Mrs. Staggchase; but it at least assured him that he had not been mistaken in his mental attitude toward the creed he had discarded.