Then her whole face was lit up as he had never seen it shine before, with the streaming out of the long-hidden hope; and drawing his face down to her, she stroked it as she had been wont when a very little child, and kissed him, and said,—
"Oh, father, do you think God will give me the joy of going Inside?"
"Why not, darling?" he answered cheerily; "nothing is too good for Him to give; and what was the Cathedral built for, but for such as thee to sing His praises inside?"
Yet, even as he spoke, there was something in the light of the wistful eyes, and in the touch of the feeble feverish hands, that made his accents falter.
Christmas Eve came. All night the snows fell. In the morning the sun shone, but the air was keen and cold, and little Marie knew there was no going Inside for her that day. But she thanked God for making the outside so beautiful, just as if the angels of the winds had been all night decorating every ledge and angle and quaint familiar bit of carving, and all the fretwork of the stone crown, with alabaster and crystal, or some heavenly blending of glories impossible in earthly material.
As her father left her for the service, he looked fondly back, and said,—
"At Easter, darling; inside at Easter!"
But there was no ring of hope in his tones, cheerful as he tried to make the words; and when he had left her, and the soft dim music floated in broken cadences to her on her solitary little bed, for once the child felt not merely alone but lonely, and a few hot, rare tears fell through her thin fingers as she pressed them on her face.
But she was not alone. And as she lay quietly weeping, sacred words came into her heart, borne on the sacred music, like the scent of violets on the winds in spring.