Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/103

Rh each seat attentively in search of Fanny Lane. This time he was more successful; in a very few moments he found her. She and her friends were sitting where Hi Peet had been in the afternoon, only five seats back from the pulpit, and near the central aisle. Fanny herself sat in the outside seat, with her face turned away from the platform, and her eyes bent earnestly down the long vistas of twinkling lights between the trees. It was a beautiful and impressive spectacle. Lanterns were hung upon many of the trees, and their light brought out the foliage above them in a marvelous gold and black tracery; in every direction long shadowy aisles seemed to stretch away, with alternating intervals of gloom and radiance; and overhead was a clear, dark sky blazing with stars. No wonder that in such a scene as this hearts are newly wrought upon by memories and appeals.

The sermon was not a long one. At its close, the usual invitation was given to all those who wished the prayers of the congregation to come forward into the seats reserved for them. Many went forward. Then rose the sweet wild hymn,—

The tender plaintive cadences seemed to float up among the trees, and to be prolonged there, in the upper air, as if the echoes were entangled in the leaves; then came prayers,—earnest, wrestling