"Thus died they and their church--but from the wreck Of fire and smoke and broken wood and stone There rose a figure greater far than they-- Their Lord, who dwells within no house of hands; Whose beauty hath no need of any form! Out from the fire He passed, and round Him went Marie and Jean and Etienne and Francois, And they went singing, singing, through their France-- And Italy--and England--and the world!"
When Mrs. Burton began her recitation she sat up on the edge of her couch and leaning forward kept her eyes fastened sometimes on the floor, sometimes on the picture of the great cathedral. Now and then her gaze quickly swept the faces of her audience.
She was wondering if the poem had bored any one of them. It was a long poem and perhaps its spiritual meaning would not be altogether plain.
However, as the poem reached its conclusion, and her voice with its dramatic power and sweetness made the picture of the peasant people and their peasant church a visible and compelling thing, she no longer felt fearful.
The faces of the girls before her were fine and serious; Bettina and Marta, who cared more for poetry and art than the others, had flushed and their eyes were filled with tears.
As Mrs. Burton finished, it was as if one could actually hear the new spirit of brotherhood which Christ preached two thousand years ago, "singing, singing, through the world."
Yet in the silence which was a fitting tribute to the poem, suddenly the entire audience broke into a ripple of laughter. From the far side of the room a gentle snore had been Sally Ashton's sole expression of appreciation.
Following the sound of the laughter, Sally sat up and began blinking her soft golden brown eyes, looking for all the world like a sleepy kitten.
"I think you had far better give yourself up to justice and have someone take care of you properly," she announced in a far-away voice. This was the conclusion which Sally had just reached at the end of her half-sleeping and half-waking dream of her runaway soldier.
She did not know that she was to make such an extraordinary remark aloud, but fortunately no one had the faintest knowledge of her meaning.
Indeed, no one really heard her, as the girls were too amused over Sally's characteristic habit of falling asleep on occasions when conversation or entertainment bored her.