'I've got the map of London. If I can I shall get to St. Matthew's; and so I thought I had better tell you, in case I wasn't back to breakfast. Edgar showed me your room.'
'Is Edgar sleeping here?'
'No; he went to Renville's when he'd put me in. I'll be back anyway by the time Robin and Angel come, but I can't stay quiet. Nobody ever gave me any notion what this place is. It makes one feel I don't know how, only just to see the people—streaming, streaming, streaming, just like a river! And then that wonderful—most wonderful music!'
The boy was gone, and Cherry felt as if his fate were sealed—the drop gone to join the other drops, and to swirl away!
Edgar was rather amazed and disconcerted, when on coming in about ten o'clock he found that he had vanished. He had meant to take him to any ecclesiastical wonder that he wished; but he laughed at Cherry's fears of the boy losing himself. 'He is a born gamin,' he said—'takes to London streets as a native element. But Felix is right, he must not have too much of it. I was heartily glad when it was over last night, and durst not keep him for the ballet, though I much wanted to see what he would say to it; but he was worked up to such a pitch I didn't know what would come next, and I'm sure his remarks taught me more about Don Giovanni than ever I saw before. He was in such a state when he came out that I hardly knew what to do with him. I should have given him a glass of ale but he wouldn't hear of that, so I could only let him have his will—a great cup of coffee—and send him to bed. I knew he wouldn't sleep.'
Lance did appear at the moment of luncheon, when Robina and Angela arrived to spend the rest of the day. He had not reached St Matthew's; but he had found a church open early for a grand choral Celebration, and this not being customary at Minsterham, had been almost overwhelming to a nature like his. It had lasted so long, that the bell rang for matins before the congregation had left the church; and Lance had stayed on, and heard a service far exceeding in warmth and splendour that of his sober old cathedral, and such a soul-stirring sermon as was utterly unlike the steady-going discourses of his canons.
He had never even missed his breakfast, and yet seemed not to care for the meal before him, though he ate what was put on his plate; and he had that look of being all brow, eyes, and nose, that had often recurred ever since his illness; but he would not allow that he was tired; and so far from being able to sit still, wanted his little sisters to walk with him in Kensington Gardens, and Robina being a discreet person, and knowing her way, there was no reason against this; and off they went, all three supremely happy, and Cherry feeling a certain hopefulness that Robina's steady good sense would be a counterpoise to other influences and excitements. But Lance had not come to any state for sober sense. Under the trees of Kensington Gardens, the influence of the brilliant spring beauty, and the gay cheerful vivacity of the holiday crowd, still acted on his eager self; and he used his sisters as audience for all his impressions as to Don Giovanni, till he had driven Angela almost as wild as himself with his vivid descriptions—and to be sure, he treated it as a sort of religious exercise. Indeed, the sensation he seemed chiefly to have carried off with him, was that London had been maligned; he had always supposed it to be a Vanity Fair, where one's religion would be in extreme peril; and behold, he had found religion there like everything else—more quickening, more inspiriting, more exquisitely beautiful and satisfying in its ministrations, than anything that he could have conceived! Nor did the late Evening Service with which his day finished—with all its accessories of light and music, and another sermon from a celebrated preacher—lessen this impression, which made St Oswald's by comparison so utterly flat, dead, and unprofitable.
Robina could not help saying to Cherry, with that old-womanish air of wisdom that belonged to her sometimes, 'I do wish we hadn't taken Lance to such a nice church. He knows less what London really is now than he did before.'
Dear little Robin! as if she knew what London really was! And Cherry was too anxious an elder sister to give her much comfort, except by saying, 'It is fair that he should know the truth of what is to be found there, Bobbie. You see he is only getting good out of it in his own mind.'
'Yes, that's true; only he will make himself ill.'