“If you could but go to college to-day, mother!” went on Dolly.
“Why!”
“Mr. Benson preaches. I met Miss Stafford yesterday afternoon, and she told me Mr. Benson had come into residence. The Herald said so too.”
“Then you must go betimes if you would secure a seat,” remarked Mrs. Grape. “And mind you don’t get your new muslin skirt torn.”
So Dolly put on her new muslin, and her bonnet, and started.
When the Reverend Christopher Benson, Master of the Temple, became one of the prebendaries of Worcester, his fame as a preacher flew to all parts of the town. You should hear the Squire’s account of the crush in getting into the cathedral on the Sundays that he was in residence: four Sundays in the year; or five, as the case might be; all told. Members of other churches, Dissenters of different sects, Quakers, Roman Catholics, and people who never went anywhere at other times, scrupled not to run to hear Mr. Benson. For reading like unto his, or preaching like unto his, had rarely been heard in that cathedral or in any other. Though it might be only the Gospel that fell to his share in the communion service, the crowd listened, enraptured, to his sweet, melodious tones. The college doors were besieged before the hour for opening them; it was like going into a theatre.
Dolly, on this day, made one in the crowd at the cloister entrance; she was pushed here and there; and although she hurried well with the rest as soon as the doors were unlocked, every seat was taken when she reached the chancel. She found standing room opposite the pulpit, near King John’s tomb, and felt very hot in the crush.
“Is it always like this, here?”
The whispered words came from a voice at her side. Dolly turned, and saw a tall, fine-looking, well-dressed man about thirty, with a green silk umbrella in his hand.
“No,” she whispered back again. “Only for four or five Sundays, at this time of the year, when Mr. Benson preaches.”