'It is a strange ambition, though, to be glorified so in one's funeral monument,' said Betty.

'A very common ambition,' remarked Pitt. 'But this chapel was to be much more than a monument. It was a chantry. The king ordered ten thousand masses to be said here for the repose of his soul; and intended that the monkish establishment should remain for ever to attend to them. Here around his tomb you see the king's particular patron saints,—nine of them,—to whom he looked for help in time of need; all over the chapel you will find the four national saints, if I may so call them, of the kingdom; and at the end there is the Virgin Mary, with Peter and Paul, and other saints and angels innumerable. The whole chapel is like those touching folded hands of stone we were speaking of,—a continual appeal, through human and angelic mediation, fixed in stone; though at the beginning also living in the chants of the monks.'

'Well, I am sure that is being religious!' said Mrs. Dallas. 'If such a place as this does not honour religion, I don't know what does.'

'Mother, Christ said, "I am the door."'

'Yes, my dear, but is not all this an appeal to Him?'

'Mother, he said, "He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." What have saints and angels to do with it? "He that belieth."'

'Surely the builder of all this must have believed,' said Mrs. Dallas, 'or he would never have spent so much money and taken so much pains about it.'

'If he had believed on Christ, mother, he would have known he had no need. Think of those ten thousand masses to be said for him, that his sins might be forgiven and his soul received into heaven; you see how miserably uncertain the poor king felt of ever getting there.'

'Well,' said Mrs. Dallas, 'every one must feel uncertain! He cannot know—how can he know?'

'How can he live and not know?' Pitt answered in a lowered tone. 'Uncertainty on that point would be enough to drive a thinking man mad. Henry the Seventh, you see, could not bear it, and so he arranged to have ten thousand masses said for him, and filled his chapel with intercessory saints.'