"Can I?"
"Yes. There is no danger. The streets are comparatively clear. I will go with you."
Bel asked Miss Smalley.
"Will you come? Auntie will be sure to sleep, I think."
Miss Smalley had scarcely heart either to go or stay. Of the two, it was easier to go. To do—to see—something.
Mr. Sparrow came in. He met them at the door, and turned directly back with them.
He, too, was a free-seat worshipper at Old Trinity. He and the music-mistress—they were both of English birth, hence of the same national faith—had been used to go from the same dwelling, separately, to the same house of worship, and sit in opposite galleries. But their hearts had gone up together in the holy old words that their lips breathed in the murmur of the congregation. These links between them, of country and religion, which they had never spoken of, were the real links.
As they went forth this Sunday morning, in company for the first time, toward the church in which they should never kneel again, they felt another,—the link that Eve and Adam felt when the sword of flame swept Paradise.
Plain old souls!—Plain old bodies, I mean, hopping and "todillating"—as Bel expressed the little spinster's gait—along together; their souls walked in a sweet and gracious reality before the sight of God.
Bel and Mr. Hewland were beside each other. They had never walked together before, of course; but they hardly thought of the unusualness. The time broke down distinctions; nothing looked strange, when everything was so.