At this moment they were thrust apart.  Eleanor quivered as she was carried through the swinging doors into the church.

“I think you’re right,” she whispered to Alison, “it is splendid.  There’s something about it that takes hold of me, that carries one away.  It makes me wonder how it can be guided—­what will come of it?”

They caught sight of Phil pushing his way towards them, and his face bore the set look of belligerency which Eleanor knew so well, but he returned her smile.  Alison’s heart warmed towards him.

“What do you think of this?” he demanded.  “Most of our respectable friends who dared to come have left in a towering rage—­to institute lawsuits, probably.  At tiny rate, strangers are not being made to wait until ten minutes after the service begins.  That’s one barbarous custom abolished.”

“Strangers seem to have taken matters in their own hands for once” Eleanor smiled.  “We’ve made up our minds to stay, Phil, even if we have to stand.”

“That’s the right spirit,” declared her husband, glancing at Alison, who had remained silent, with approval and by no means a concealed surprise.  “I think I know of a place where I can squeeze you in, near Professor Bridges and Sally, on the side aisle.”

“Are George and Sally here?” Eleanor exclaimed.

“Hodder,” said Phil, “is converting the heathen.  You couldn’t have kept George away.  And it was George who made Sally stay!”

Presently they found themselves established between a rawboned young workingman who smelled strongly of soap, whose hair was plastered tightly against his forehead, and a young woman who leaned against the wall.  The black in which she was dressed enhanced the whiteness and weariness of her face, and she sat gazing ahead of her, apparently unconscious of those who surrounded her, her hands tightly folded in her lap.  In their immediate vicinity, indeed, might have been found all the variety of type seen in the ordinary street car.  And in truth there were some who seemed scarcely to realize they were not in a public vehicle.  An elaborately dressed female in front of them, whose expansive hat brushed her neighbours, made audible comments to a stout man with a red neck which was set in a crease above his low collar.

“They tell me Eldon Parr’s pew has a gold plate on it.  I wish I knew which it was.  It ain’t this one, anyway, I’ll bet.”

“Say, they march in in this kind of a church, don’t they?” some one said behind them.

Eleanor, with her lips tightly pressed, opened her prayer book.  Alison’s lips were slightly parted as she gazed about her, across the aisle.  Her experience of the Sunday before, deep and tense as it had been, seemed as nothing compared to this; the presence of all these people stimulated her inexpressibly, fired her; and she felt the blood pulsing through her body as she contrasted this gathering with the dignified, scattered congregation she had known.  She scarcely recognized the church itself . . .  She speculated on the homes from which these had come, and the motives which had brought them.