“Oho, it grows heavy, does it, Mary?”
“No, no; that isn’t it. And yet,” she confessed, after a momentary pause, “it is pretty heavy, come to carry it so far.”
“Well, we’ll empty it at the chapel.”
But Percy took the basket into his own hand, despite the maid’s earnest protestations, and he found it heavier than he had thought. It was but as a feather to him, but he could feel that it must have pulled on the weak girl during so long a walk.
“Ho! There it is!”
“Aye, and here is the rain.”
It was the chapel which Cordelia had discovered, and they reached it with not a moment to spare, for scarcely had Mary crossed the threshold when the rain came down in a torrent. As the maid expressed it, with more of truth than poetry—it came down “like they were pouring it out of a tub.”
But they had found perfect shelter, though somewhat gloomsome. Percy selected three of the most comfortable seats he could find, and he did not have occasion to move them.
They were already in the corner farthest away from the storm—in a corner between the arch of the vestibule and the first window on the easterly side. And there in the deepening gloom Cordelia opened the basket, and took out a portion of the provisions she had with her own hands packed into it. She had brought but one drinking-cup, but it answered every purpose.
“We can call it ‘the Loving Cup,’” suggested the maid, little dreaming what chords she was touching to tuneful response in the bosoms of her two companions.