A Cathedral Courtship
tart (here a bright idea entered my mind) and perhaps in case my aunt doesn’t care for the gooseberry tart, you might bring a lemon squash, please.”

Now I had never met a lemon squash personally, but I had often heard of it, and wished to show my familiarity with British culinary art.

“One lemon squash, miss?”

“Oh, as to that, it doesn’t matter,” I said haughtily; “bring a sufficient number for two persons.”

* * * * *

Aunt Celia came home in the highest feather. She had twice been taken for an Englishwoman. She said she thought that lemon squash was a drink; I thought it was a pie; but we shall find out at dinner, for, as I said, I ordered a sufficient number for two persons.

At four o’clock we attended even-song at the cathedral. I shall not say what I felt when the white-surpliced boy choir entered, winding down those vaulted aisles, or when I heard for the first time that intoned service, with all its “witchcraft of harmonic sound.” I sat quite by myself in a high carved-oak seat, and the hour was passed in a trance of serene delight. I do not have many opinions, it is true, but papa says I am always strong on sentiments; nevertheless, I shall not attempt to tell even what I feel in these new and beautiful experiences, for it has been better told a thousand times.

There were a great many people at service, and a large number of Americans among them, I should think, though we saw no familiar faces. There was one particularly nice young man, who looked like a Bostonian. He sat opposite me. He didn’t stare,—he was too well bred; but when I looked the other way, he looked at me. Of course I could feel his eyes,—anybody can, at least any girl can; but I attended to every word of the service, and was as good as an angel. When the procession had filed out and the last strain of the great organ had rumbled into silence, we went on a tour through the cathedral, a heterogeneous band, headed by a conscientious old verger who did his best to enlighten us, and succeeded in virtually spoiling my pleasure.

After we had finished (think of “finishing” a cathedral in an hour or two!), aunt Celia and I, with one or two others, wandered through the beautiful close, looking at the exterior from every possible point, and coming at last to a certain ruined arch which is very famous. It did not strike me as being remarkable. I could make any number of them 
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