back upon the carved oak of the stall, preoccupied, while the choristers chanted, thinking more of all this than of the service. And then, with a sudden pang, there came across her mind the thought of the descent that would be necessary from that white pedestal of her maidenhood, the sheltered and protected position of the girl at home, which alone seemed to be fit and right. She would have to descend from that, and gather up her spotless robes about her, and come out to encounter the storms of the world. All that had elevated her in her own conceit was going from her--and what, oh! what could he, or anyone, find afterwards in her? He would turn away most likely with a sigh or groan from a girl who could thus throw away her veil and her crown and stand up and confront the world. Lottie seemed to see her downfall with the eyes of her visionary lover, and the anguish that brought with it crushed her very heart. Did it ever occur to her that an alternative had been offered for her acceptance? Once, for a moment, she saw Purcell’s melancholy face look down upon her from the organ-loft, and gave him a kind, half-sad, half-amused momentary thought. Poor fellow! she could have cried for the pain she must have given him, and yet she could have laughed, though she was ashamed of the impulse. Poor boy! it must have been only a delusion; he would forget it; he would find somebody of his own class, she said to herself, uneasy to think she had troubled him, yet with the only half-smile that circumstances had afforded her for days past. Captain Despard, had he known, would have thought Purcell’s suit well worthy of consideration in the absence of a better; and the Signor, whom Lottie had made up her mind to address, darted fiery glances at her from the organ-loft, taking up his pupil’s cause with heat and resentment; but she herself sailed serenely over the Purcell incident altogether, looking down upon it from supreme heights of superiority. It did not occur to her as a thing to be seriously thought of, much less in her confusion and anguish, as a reasonable way of escape. And thus the morning went on, the chanting and the reading, and all those outcries to God and appeals to His mercy which His creatures utter daily with so much calm. Did anybody mean it when they all burst forth, “Lord have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us?” This cry woke Lottie, and her dreaming soul came back, and she held up her clasped hands in a momentary passion of entreaty. The sudden wildness of the cry in the midst of all that stately solemnity of praying caught her visionary soul. It was as if all the rest had missed His ear, all the music and the poetry, King David harping on his harp, and Handel with his blind face raised to heaven; and nothing was left but to snatch at the garments of the Master as He went away, not hearing, not looking, or appearing not to look and hear. This poor young soul in the midst of her