Part 5 (2/2)

They entered; an old woman was dusting the pews as if for service. ”That will be all set right,” said Willis; ”we must have no women, but sacristans and servers.”

”Then, you know, all these pews will go to the right about. Did you ever see a finer church for a function?”

”Where would you put the sacristy?” said Willis; ”that closet is meant for the vestry, but would never be large enough.”

”That depends on the number of altars the church admits,” answered White; ”each altar must have its own dresser and wardrobe in the sacristy.”

”One,” said Willis, counting, ”where the pulpit stands, that'll be the high altar; one quite behind, that may be Our Lady's; two, one on each side of the chancel--four already; to whom do you dedicate them?”

”The church is not wide enough for those side ones,” objected White.

”Oh, but it is,” said Willis; ”I have seen, abroad, altars with only one step to them, and they need not be very broad. I think, too, this wall admits of an arch--look at the depth of the window; _that_ would be a gain of room.”

”No,” persisted White; ”the chancel is too narrow;” and he began to measure the floor with his pocket-handkerchief. ”What would you say is the depth of an altar from the wall?” he asked.

On looking up he saw some ladies in the church whom he and Willis knew--the pretty Miss Boltons--very Catholic girls, and really kind, charitable persons into the bargain. We cannot add, that they were much wiser at that time than the two young gentlemen whom they now encountered; and if any fair reader thinks our account of them a reflection on Catholic-minded ladies generally, we beg distinctly to say, that we by no means put them forth as a type of a cla.s.s; that among such persons were to be found, as we know well, the gentlest spirits and the tenderest hearts; and that nothing short of severe fidelity to historical truth keeps us from adorning these two young persons in particular with that prudence and good sense with which so many such ladies were endowed. These two sisters had open hands, if they had not wise heads; and their object in entering the church (which was not the church of their own parish) was to see the old woman, who was at once a subject and instrument of their bounty, and to say a word about her little grandchildren, in whom they were interested. As may be supposed, they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical, and they knew less of themselves; and the latter defect White could not supply, though he was doing, and had done, his best to remedy the former deficiency; and every meeting did a little.

The two parties left the church together, and the gentlemen saw the ladies home. ”We were imagining, Miss Bolton,” White said, walking at a respectful distance from her, ”we were imagining St. James's a Catholic church, and trying to arrange things as they ought to be.”

”What was your first reform?” asked Miss Bolton.

”I fear,” answered White, ”it would fare hard with your _protegee_, the old lady who dusts out the pews.”

”Why, certainly,” said Miss Bolton, ”because there would be no pews to dust.”

”But not only in office, but in person, or rather in character, she must make her exit from the church,” said White.

”Impossible,” said Miss Bolton; ”are women, then, to remain Protestants?”

”Oh, no,” answered White, ”the good lady will reappear, only in another character; she will be a widow.”

”And who will take her present place?”

”A sacristan,” answered White; ”a sacristan in a cotta. Do you like the short cotta or the long?” he continued, turning to the younger lady.

”I?” answered Miss Charlotte; ”I always forget, but I think you told us the Roman was the short one; I'm for the short cotta.”

”You know, Charlotte,” said Miss Bolton, ”that there's a great reform going on in England in ecclesiastical vestments.”

”I hate all reforms,” answered Charlotte, ”from the Reformation downwards. Besides, we have got some way in our cope; you have seen it, Mr. White? it's such a sweet pattern.”

”Have you determined what to do with it?” asked Willis.

”Time enough to think of that,” said Charlotte; ”it'll take four years to finish.”

”Four years!” cried White; ”we shall be all real Catholics by then; England will be converted.”

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