The effect was indescribable. Flossy was at first too amazed to understand what was the matter; and then it required all her energies to keep from laughing aloud. How any human beings could stand up and give vent to such unearthly sounds, and still preserve their gravity, was beyond her comprehension. The volume of noise constantly increased as one after another of the singers, having tried hastily half a dozen or more tunes in various keys, came proudly into the right one, pouring forth a torrent of sound to let the precentor know, that, after all, he was conquered, and his secret wrested from him. That individual, finding himself defeated in his endeavors to conceal the tune under new and more elaborate variations, sulkily abandoned the contest, and tried to sing it correctly, thereby coming so far from the original, that once more the congregation were puzzled, and, concluding him to have changed the air, struck anew into a wild variety of experiments more discordant than before.
The singing was so astonishing, that the words did not at first impress Flossy; but they were sufficiently remarkable when once her attention was fixed on them.
"Like water I'm poured out, my bones all out of joynt do part. Amidst my bowels, as the wax, so melted is my heart.
"My strength is like a pot-sheard dry'd, my tongue it cleaveth fast Unto my jaws; and to the dust of death thou brought me hast."
For the remainder of the service Flossy gave her attention chiefly to the book of psalms, and very entertaining she found it. She had a very funny time all alone in the corner of the great bare pew, her golden hair fluffed about her face, and her cheeks flushed with her efforts to restrain her laughter. She grew more and more absorbed until at the lines,--
"Like as the hart for water-brooks in thirst doth pant and bray,"
she forgot herself entirely, and a little golden trill of laughter rippled through the solemn old church. Then poor Flossy felt, rather than saw, the looks of horror and indignation which were cast in her direction, and her cheeks burned like fire. She relieved her mind by pulling to pieces a ragged psalmody; and, as she grew calmer, the printed paper used in the binding caught her eye. Upon it she read the following notice:--