One form could be discerned standing in rapt attention, gazing from a platform on the roof upon the far-distant scene.  He was enveloped in the white coarse woollen gown of the Dominican monks, and seemed wholly absorbed in meditating on the scene before him, which appeared to move him deeply; for, raising his hands, he repeated aloud from the Latin Vulgate the words of an Apostle:—­

“Accessistis ad Sion montem et civitatem Dei viventis, Ierusalem caelestem, et multorum millinm angelorum frequentiam, ecclesiam primitivorum, qui inscripti sunt in caelis."[A]

[Footnote A:  “Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven.”]

At this moment the evening worship commenced within the Cathedral, and the whole building seemed to vibrate with the rising swell of the great organ, while the grave, long-drawn tones of the Ambrosian Liturgy rose surging in waves and dying away in distant murmurs, like the rolling of the tide on some ocean-shore.  The monk turned and drew near to the central part of the roof to listen, and as he turned he disclosed the well-known features of Father Antonio.

Haggard, weary, and travel-worn, his first impulse, on entering the city, was to fly to this holy solitude, as the wandering sparrow of sacred song sought her nest amid the altars of God’s temple.  Artist no less than monk, he found in this wondrous shrine of beauty a repose both for his artistic and his religious nature; and while waiting for Agostino Sarelli to find his uncle’s residence, he had determined to pass the interval in this holy solitude.  Many hours had he paced alone up and down the long promenades of white marble which run everywhere between forests of dazzling pinnacles and flying-buttresses of airy lightness.  Now he rested in fixed attention against the wall above the choir, which he could feel pulsating with throbs of sacred sound, as if a great warm heart were beating within the fair marble miracle, warming it into mysterious life and sympathy.

“I would now that boy were here to worship with me,” he said.  “No wonder the child’s faith fainteth:  it takes such monuments as these of the Church’s former days to strengthen one’s hopes.  Ah, woe unto those by whom such offence cometh!”

At this moment the form of Agostino was seen ascending the marble staircase.

The eye of the monk brightened as he came towards him.  He put out one hand eagerly to take his, and raised the other with a gesture of silence.

“Look,” he said, “and listen!  Is it not the sound of many waters and mighty thunderings?”

Agostino stood subdued for the moment by the magnificent sights and sounds; for, as the sun went down, the distant mountains grew every moment more unearthly in their brilliancy,—­and as they lay in a long line, jewelled brightness mingling with the cloud-wreaths of the far horizon, one might have imagined that he in truth beheld the foundations of that celestial city of jasper, pearl, and translucent gold which the Apostle saw, and that the risings and fallings of choral sound which seemed to thrill and pulsate through the marble battlements were indeed that song like many waters sung by the Church Triumphant above.