'I think it must be,' said Geraldine, with a long breath of wonder and admiration.
'Ah! would you not like to have a good look, Cherry?' said Lance. 'That's Richard Coeur de Lion's seal in there.'
'Don't begin about it--don't set him on,' whispered Willie, with a sign of his head towards his father, who was fitting the key into the opposite door, 'or we shall all stay here for the rest of the day.'
This low door open, Mr. Harewood and the boys bared their heads as they entered, and Geraldine felt the strange solemn sensation of finding herself in a building of vast height and majesty, full of a wonderful stillness, as though the confusion of sounds she had been in so recently were far, far off.
'Where now, Lancelot?' asked Mr. Harewood, in a hushed voice; 'do you want me any further?'
'No, thank you, sir; I'll just take her across the choir to Mr. Miles, and then join the rest of us at the vestry.'
'Good-bye for the present, then,' said Mr. Harewood kindly. 'You are in safe hands. Your brother comes round every one. _I_ could not do this.'
Through the side-screen, into the grandly beautiful choir, arching high above, with stall-work and graceful canopies below, and rich glass casting down beams of coloured light--all for 'glory and for beauty,' thought Geraldine.
'You must not stop; you must look when you are settled. That's my side,' pointing to one of the choristers' desks. 'It will be only we that sing in here; the congregation is in the nave--a perfect sea of chairs. I'll come for you when it is over. Here is Mr. Miles. My sister, sir.'
A pale gentleman in spectacles, with a surplice and beautiful blue hood, was here addressed. He too greeted Geraldine, very shyly but kindly, and she found herself expected to ascend some alarming-looking stone steps. The organ was on the choir-screen, and to the organist's little private gallery was she to ascend. It was a difficult matter, and she had in her trepidation despairingly recognised the difference between Lance's good will and Felix's practised strength; but at last she was landed in an admirable little cushioned nook, hidden by two tall painted carved canopies--exactly over the Dean's head, her brother told her--and where, as she sat sideways, she could see through the quatrefoils into the choir on the right hand, and the nave on the left. 'Delightful! Oh, thank you; how kind! If I am only not keeping any one out.'