"Heaven and earth," sang the tenor, Mr. Henry Wallace, owner of the

Wallace garage. His larynx, which gave him somewhat the effect of having

swallowed a crab-apple and got it only part way down, protruded above

his low collar.

"Heaven and earth," sang the bass, Mr. Edwin Goodno, of the meat market

and the Boy Scouts. "Heaven and earth, are full--" His chin, large and

fleshy, buried itself deep; his eyes were glued on the music sheet in

his hand.

"Are full, are full, are full," sang the soprano, Clare Rossiter, of the

yellow colonial house on the Ridgely Road. She sang with her eyes turned

up, and as she reached G flat she lifted herself on her toes. "Of the

majesty, of Thy glory."

"Ready," barked the choir master. "Full now, and all together."

The choir room in the parish house resounded to the twenty voices of the

choir. The choir master at the piano kept time with his head. Earnest

and intent, they filled the building with the Festival Te Deum of Dudley

Buck, Opus 63, No. 1.

Elizabeth Wheeler liked choir practice. She liked the way in which,

after the different parts had been run through, the voices finally

blended into harmony and beauty. She liked the small sense of

achievement it gave her, and of being a part, on Sundays, of the

service. She liked the feeling, when she put on the black cassock and

white surplice and the small round velvet cap of having placed in her

locker the things of this world, such as a rose-colored hat and a blue

georgette frock, and of being stripped, as it were, for aspirations.

At such times she had vague dreams of renunciation. She saw herself

cloistered in some quiet spot, withdrawn from the world; a place where

there were long vistas of pillars and Gothic arches, after a photograph

in the living room at home, and a great organ somewhere, playing.

She would go home from church, however, clad in the rose-colored hat and

the blue georgette frock, and eat a healthy Sunday luncheon; and by two

o'clock in the afternoon, when the family slept and Jim had gone to the

country club, her dreams were quite likely to be entirely different.

Generally speaking, they had to do with love. Romantic, unclouded young

love dramatic only because it was love, and very happy.

Sometime, perhaps, some one would come and say he loved her. That was

all. That was at once the beginning and the end. Her dreams led up to

that and stopped. Not by so much as a hand clasp did they pass that

wall.




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