‘There have been so many other things,’ said Belle, ‘tennis, you know, and canoe practice and tandem parties.’
Her cousin laughed.
‘But that is only when Russ and I are not reading up for exams. What do you find to occupy your leisure?’
‘Leisure!’ exclaimed Belle solemnly. ‘Leisure, my dear boy, has been an unknown quantity ever since I undertook to pilot this most inexorable young woman among the antiquities of our venerable city. She is an inveterate relic-hunter; is enraptured with Bunker Hill and the Old South; delights in Cornhill, and wherever she can find a crooked old street that reminds her of Washington; and pokes about all the old cemeteries, until I feel as eerie as Coleridge’s ancient mariner. I believe she expects to come upon all the Pilgrim Fathers buried in one vault. But there is nothing special on the programme for to-day—we will go and see my lady this very afternoon.’
As they went in to lunch, Richard Everidge leaned over to Pauline and whispered:—
‘You have not answered my question. Do you think it is possible for common, every-day Christians to live above the clouds?’
‘If I were a Christian,’ she said, in a low tone, ‘I should want to get as high up as I could.’
When they reached Tryphosa’s, they heard her singing. They waited, listening.
‘Here brief is the sighing,
And brief is the crying,
For brief is the life!
The life there is endless,
The joy there is endless,
And ended the strife.