Her companion had given her another companion.  In the old gray Cathedral, full of the silent voices of men who had prayed and been gathered to their rest long since, Rosamund looked down the way of happiness, and she could not see its end.

The five minutes’ bell stopped and Robin sat up very straight in the pew.  The Bishop’s wife proceeded to her stall with a friend.  Robin stared reverently, alert for the tribute to Mr. Thrush.  Miss Piper glided in sideways, holding her head down as if she were searching for a dropped pin on the pavement.  She, too, was an acquaintance of Robin’s, and he whispered to his mother: 

“Miss Piper’s come to see Mr. Thrush.”

“Yes, darling.”

What a darling he was in his anxiety for his old friend!  She looked at the freckles on the bridge of his little nose and longed to kiss them.  This was without doubt the most wonderful day in Robin’s life so far.  She looked ahead and saw how many wonderful days for Robin!  And over his fair hair she glanced at Dion, and she felt Dion’s thought hand in hand with hers.

A long sigh came from the organ, and then Mr. Dickinson was at work preluding Mr. Thrush.  Distant steps sounded on the pavement behind the choir screen coming from some hidden place at the east end of the Cathedral.  The congregation stood up.  All this, in Robin’s mind, was for Mr. Thrush.  Still holding his father’s hand tightly he joined in the congregation’s movement.  The solemnly pacing steps drew nearer.  Robin felt very small, and the pew seemed very deep to him now that he was standing up.  There was a fat red footstool by his left leg.  He peeped at his father and whispered: 

“May I, Fa?”

Dion bent down, took him under the arms and lifted him gently on to the footstool just as the vergers appeared with their wands, walking nobly at the head of the procession.

At Welsley the ordinary vergers did not march up the choir to the return stalls, but divided and formed up in two lines at the entrance, making a dignified avenue down which the choristers and the clergy passed with calm insouciance into the full view of the waiting congregation.  Only two picked men, with wands of silver, preceded the dignitaries to their massive stalls.  Mr. Thrush was—­though not in Robin’s eyes—­an ordinary verger.  He would not therefore penetrate into the choir.  But, mercifully, he with one other had been placed in the forefront of the procession.  He led the way, and Robin and his parents had a full and satisfying view of him as the procession curved round and made for the screen.  In his dark and flowing robe he came on majestical, holding his wand quite perfectly, and looking not merely self-possessed but—­as Rosamund afterwards put it—­“almost uplifted.”

Robin began to breathe hard as he gazed.  From Mr. Thrush’s shoulders the robe swung with his lordly movements.  He reached the entrance.  It seemed as if nothing could prevent him from floating on, in all the pride and dignity of his new office, to the very steps of the Dean’s stall.  But discipline held him.  He stood aside; he came to rest with his wand before him; he let the procession pass by, and then, almost mystically, he evaporated with his brother vergers.