Page:Lesbia Newman - Dalton - 1889.djvu/300

, observed Mr Bristley to his niece, in a rather loud whisper.

‘Perhaps so,’ she returned.

‘To the care and guidance of Mylitta,’ ended the preacher, ‘I now commit you, my hearers, in thought, word, and deed. Grant, O Mother and Daughter of the Universe, to thy faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their sins and serve thee with a quiet mind; that they may be nourished with thy grace, and ever grow in thy holy wisdom more and more, until they reach to thine eternal glory!’

The choir chanted an elaborate Amen; and as Mr Mountjoy descended from the pulpit to his stall in the chancel, the orchestra and organ struck up Mozart’s well-known minuet in Don Juan, and presently the choir sang to that rich and voluptuous music a special hymn of the Mylittic ritual, with solos in it for the different voices. It was curious to observe the solemnifying effect of this upon the faces of the congregation; so many of whom had been accustomed to associate the same air only with the adventures of vulgar and brutal intrigue. The sound of the minuet was the regular signal for the corps de ballet to mount the raised dais which stood in the centre of the chancel before the statute of Mylitta. Eight girls, of magnificent figure and clothed outwardly in sea-blue gauze, walked the minuet, in full view from every part of the church; and the ladies who at the same signal had entered their vestry came forth in the thick white and blue Mylittic robe, to take their places each in the door of her confessional, and to receive there the homage of their appointed suppliants for the day, who came to kneel at their feet.

‘Splendid!’ exclaimed Mr Bristley rapturously.

‘This ritual,’ said Lesbia, ‘must be very costly, but it is the sort of thing most likely to draw the purse-strings of