'As we live under the same roof, we may well be friends, but if, as you say, you are yet but sixteen years old, you are so much younger than I am.'
'Nay, older by a score of years,' Chatterton interrupted. 'For age is not counted by years, but by the strife and the struggle and the misery through which the soul passes. In this I am your senior.'
'Nay,' Bryda said gently, 'we cannot enter into each other's secret heart. We all know our own troubles. I have mine, and I am now parted from a sister I love, and I am, after a week's absence, hungering for her tender care.'
And now Bryda became conscious that they were observed by a party of girls who were returning through the meadows from a Sunday ramble with their lovers.
Several of the girls nodded and laughed at Chatterton. One stopped and said,--
'A new flame, Tom? Oh, fie for shame! Do you know, miss, whoever you may be, that Master Tom is a terrible one to shoot from Cupid's bow. He seldom misses his aim.'
'Come on,' said a gruff voice, 'and don't talk such foolery, Sally. Leave the boy to look after his own business.'
'Or rather the girl after hers,' was the saucy reply, as the pair moved away.
Jack Henderson began to think that Miss Chatterton purposely avoided joining company with her brother and Bryda.
'Miss Palmer has a long walk to Dowry Square. I think, by your leave, I will join her, and advise her to take advantage of Mrs Chatterton's offer to rest a while at her house.'
'Certainly, sir, if you desire it; but my brother would fain take her into the church, I fancy, before it is closed.'
Chatterton at once became moody and distrait when his _tête-à-tête_ with Bryda was at an end. He had been annoyed, too, by the remarks of the free-spoken young lady, who had rallied him on his 'new conquest,' and when they entered the church the evil spirit was again dominant.
But Bryda forgot him, forgot Rowley the priest, and the wonderful story of his poems, in the feeling of awe with which the noble church inspired her.
There was in her, as I have said, a quick response to all sights and sounds of beauty. Then, as the organ rolled its waves of melody above her head, as the last Amen of the choir rose to the vaulted roof, her whole soul was wrapt in that feeling which has no other name but devotion. The unseen Presence of what was holy and pure seemed to encompass her, and as she leaned against one of the pillars, close to the monument of the great Canynge, her fair face wore on it an expression those who saw it were not likely to forget.