"Can we be right? Can this be the Cathedral? No one seems to stay! Whither can they go?"
And the sister answered in a soft whisper,—
"We will wait to see. Can they be going to the other music?"
Scarcely had the words died from her lips when a maiden who had been kneeling close beside them, from whose liquid voice and clear reverent utterance the children had been learning the words of the song, and from whose pale radiant face they had been drinking in its joyful meaning, suddenly ceased her singing, and looking up for a moment with an earnest listening gaze, she seemed to hear some welcome irresistible call, for she said,—
"For me? Can it be indeed for me?" And softly touching the children's forehead with a touch that seemed to them a blessing, she murmured, "You will be called too, by-and-by." Then noiselessly she rose and glided away through the shadow of the arches towards the east, and up a flight of steps the children had not observed before.
They followed her with eager, anxious gaze, and for a moment, ere she glided out of sight, there was the streaming of a flood of golden sunshine down the gloom, from an open door, and once more the sound of that perfect music they had heard at first.
At that moment there was a pause in the service, and a silver-haired old man came to the children and bid them welcome.
"You look sad and bewildered, my children," he said.
"Oh, father! tell us what it means," they whispered. "Can we be in the right place? We thought we were coming to a place of light and of heavenly singing, full of rejoicing worshippers who delighted to stay there. But this seems a place of gloom and of graves. Here the worshippers are a little broken band, and even these do not stay. All is changing and imperfect. What does it mean?"
The old man smiled. "Where do you think you are?" he said.