"A needless request," she said, and laughed as she said it, while her heart gave a leap as she thought of herself at the head of Mr. Redfern's handsome house, sitting in state behind his high-stepping grays, or receiving the keys from the hands of the obsequious housekeeper.
A very old woman passed her and entered the church, bowing herself low as she crossed the sacred threshold. Agnes watched her.
"I wonder if it is a pretty church inside? I think I have heard that it is pretty."
Feeling impatient at the slowly passing time, she rose and walked through the door, and up the middle aisle. There were no doors to the pews, and seeing one that was cushioned, she entered it, sat down, and leaning back, looked carelessly round her.
It was indeed a pretty church; the softened sunbeams streamed through the stained glass of the Gothic windows, and fell in purple and gold lights on the stone floor, flickering as the old elms outside moved gently to and fro in the west wind. She saw the old woman she had before noticed, kneeling before a picture, then leaving it with many bows and courtesies, and going to another. What was she about? Oh! she was saying the stations. Agnes remembered the stations—those fourteen grievous steps in the Passion of our Lord from his trial in Pilate's house to his burial in the sepulchre, at the close of his three hours' agony on the cross.
"Poor old thing! how her back must ache. Why does she do it? Why, she is crying, wiping her eyes with her apron, and lifting her hands to heaven! Is that for her own sorrows, or those of her Saviour?"
Agnes was interested; she sat up and looked about her.
"There are two little children coming up the aisle. Do see them bob up and down and cross themselves! Oh! now they are saying their prayers."
Why should Agnes see them indistinctly? Why impatiently brush something from her eyes? Ah! the picture of her childish days rose before her, and she was for a moment once more a little child....
What nonsense! She had other things to think of now. She would have a purple satin dress just the color of that pretty light on the floor. It was fading away; it must be near sunset. At that moment came from a choir of sweet young voices: