The church was not in a joyous quarter.  It stood on the edge of a poor and very populous district, with a flaunting public-house immediately opposite.  When I got to it I found a number of other mothers (all working women), with their babies and the godfathers and godmothers they had provided for them, waiting at the door.

At this sight I felt very stupid, for I had been thinking so much about other things (some of them vain enough perhaps) that I had forgotten the necessity for sponsors; and I do not know what I should have done at that last moment if the sacristan had not come to my relief—­finding me two old people who, for a fee of a shilling each, were willing to stand godmother and godfather to my darling.

Then the priest came out of the church in his white surplice and stole, and we all gathered in the porch for the preliminary part of the sacrament.

What an experience it was!  Never since my marriage had I been in a state of such spiritual exaltation.

The sacristan, showing me some preference, had put me in the middle of the row, immediately in front of the priest, so what happened to the other children I do not know, having eyes and ears for nothing but the baptism of my own baby.

There were some mistakes, but they did not trouble me, although one was a little important.

When the priest said, “What name give you this child?” I handed the Rector’s card to the sacristan, and whispered “Isabel Mary” to the godmother, but the next thing I heard was: 

“Mary Isabel, what dost thou ask of the Church of God?”

But what did it matter?  Nothing mattered except one thing—­that my darling should be saved by the power of the Holy Sacrament from the dark terrors which threatened her.

Oh, it is a fearful and awful thing, the baptism of a child, if you really and truly believe in it.  And I did—­from the bottom of my heart and soul I believed in it and trusted it.

In my sacred joy I must have cried nearly all the time, for I had taken baby’s bonnet off, I remember, and holding it to my mouth I found after a while that I was wetting it with my tears.

When the exorcisms were over, the priest laid the end of his stole over baby’s shoulder and led her (as our prayer books say) into the church, and we all followed to the baptistery, where I knelt immediately in front of the font, with the old godmother before me, the other mothers on either side, and a group of whispering children behind.

The church was empty, save for two charwomen who were sweeping the floor of the nave somewhere up by the dark and silent altar; and when the sacristan closed the outer door there was a solemn hush, which was broken only by the priest’s voice and the godparents’ muttered responses.

“Mary Isabel, dost thou renounce Satan?”

“I do renounce him.”

“And all his works?”

“I do renounce them.”