“What’s the matter?” Billy asked in a lowered voice.

She gulped, merely shook her head.

“You’re dead, aren’t you?” he said repentantly.

“Oh, all in!” It was a relief to ascribe it to that.  “I’m awfully tired.”

“Too tired to go to church with Mary Lou and me, dear?” asked Virginia, coming in.  “Friday in Passion Week, you know.  We’re going to St, Ignatius.  But if you’re dead—?”

“Oh, I am.  I’m going straight to bed,” Susan said.  But after dinner, when Mary Lou was dressing, she suddenly changed her mind, dragged herself up from the couch where she was lying and, being Susan, brushed her hair, pinned a rose on her coat lapel, and powdered her nose.  Walking down the street with her two cousins, Susan, storm-shaken and subdued, still felt “good,” and liked the feeling.  Spring was in the air, the early darkness was sweet with the odors of grass and flowers.

When they reached the church, the great edifice was throbbing with the notes of the organ, a careless voluntary that stopped short, rambled, began again.  They were early, and the lights were only lighted here and there; women, and now and then a man, drifted up the center aisle.  Boots cheeped unseen in the arches, sibilant whispers smote the silence, pew-doors creaked, and from far corners of the church violent coughing sounded with muffled reverberations.  Mary Lou would have slipped into the very last pew, but Virginia led the way up—­up—­up—­in the darkness, nearer and nearer the altar, with its winking red light, and genuflected before one of the very first pews.  Susan followed her into it with a sigh of satisfaction; she liked to see and hear, and all the pews were open to-night.  They knelt for awhile, then sat back, silent, reverential, but not praying, and interested in the arriving congregation.

A young woman, seeing Virginia, came to whisper to her in a rasping aside.  She “had St. Joseph” for Easter, she said, would Virginia help her “fix him”?  Virginia nodded, she loved to assist those devout young women who decorated, with exquisite flowers and hundreds of candles, the various side altars of the church.

There was a constant crisping of shoes in the aisle now, the pews were filling fast.  “Lord, where do all these widows come from?” thought Susan.  A “Brother,” in a soutane, was going about from pillar to pillar, lighting the gas.  Group after group of the pendent globes sprang into a soft, moony glow; the hanging glass prisms jingled softly.  The altar-boys in red, without surplices, were moving about the altar now, lighting the candles.  The great crucifix, the altar-paintings and the tall candle-sticks were swathed in purple cloth, there were no flowers to-night on the High Altar, but it twinkled with a thousand candles.

The hour began to have its effect on Susan.  She felt herself a little girl again, yielding to the spell of the devotion all about her; the clicking rosary-beads, the whispered audible prayers, the very odors,—­odors of close-packed humanity,—­that reached her were all a part of this old mood.  A little woman fluttered up the aisle, and squeezed in beside her, panting like a frightened rabbit.  Now there was not a seat to be seen, even the benches by the confessionals were full.