Ballou's Monthly Magazine, Vol. XXVII, No. 1 — page 90: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

94 alone, though Julia persisted that she must, for a long time, for, besides wishing to be kind to Nora, she thought it would be very grand to keep house a whole evening all by herself. “ Well, then,” said Julie, at last, “ Dll go to church with you—it doesn’t keep very late, does it?” tii “No,” said Nora, “but you’d be aslape be- fore you got there, and what would your papa say? He'd be that angry with me that he'd turn me right out o’ doors.” “Papa wouldn’t care at all. He took me out himself, one evening, and I never go to sleep early, you know that I don’t, and I want to hear the music, and see the little white boys light the candles. Biddy told me about i Just then who should come along but Nora's sister and Jerry Sullivan, on their way to church? and Nora could not resist the temptation to join them. “ But,” said she, “Ill only walk on a piece with them, and you can come, too, Miss Julie.” But she walked and walked on, until she came to the church door, and then, persuaded by Liddy and Jerry, she couldn’t help going in, and Julie, who had added her yoice to coax her, was delighted. She had thought that she had never seen a church so nice; the music was splendid, and the altar looked so gay and grand, with its decorations and lizhts, and the priest chanted in such a queer way, she couldn't understand what the words of his chant were at all, and all the people bowed to the church when they came in. Julie thought that that was funny. She wondered why papa and mamma weren't Catholics—she would be one when she grew up. And the little girl sat very still, listening to the music and looking at the great illumi- nated window behind the altar, and the strange figures painted upon the walls, until the organ began to sound very far away, and the lights grew very faint, then she curled herself up in one corner of the pew, and was soon fast asleep. And when the service was over, Nora, who was eazer to say a great many things to Biddy and Jerry which she had stored up in all this long time of separation, ‘forgot all about her little charge, and they, who had as much to say to her, forgot her, also, and besides, there were so many Biddies and Noras, and Johnnies, and Pats pressing up to speak to them, that they couldn’t keep their senses about them at all, so they went out with their comrades and left poor Julie, Julie’s Adventure. .- who was dreaming as tranquilly as if she had been at home in her own litile bed, alone. The last footstep pattered out onto the side- walk, and the sexton; after putting things to rights about the altar a little, turned down the lights, never noticing the mite asleep in her solitary corner, and then he went out, too, locking the great door, and leaving the church in silence and darkness. A clock struck somewhere, with loud, dis- tinct strokes, and Julie, stirring uneasily in her sleep, her head, which was propped up against a pew cushion, fell with a jar against the hard wall, and she awoke and looked around her in bewilderment, and for a few moments had no idea where she could be, it was so strange to be sitting up in the night with one’s things on. But when her eyes were fairly open she saw the great colored windows with the moonlight sifting through them, the outline of the high altar, and the gleaming pipes of the organ in the gallery, and realized that she had been left in the church. You can imagine how frightened she was—she did not even dare to stir, but she screamed until every echo in the church was aroused and answered her in amazement. It was such a grand, dark, gloomy place to be left alone in at night; many a grown person would have trembled with fear in a like situation, and poor little Julie was almost frantic. Various~ ghost stories that had been smuggled into the nursery at home, by Nora and Kate, fiitted through her mind in rapid succession, until she fancied that she saw strange, gliding shapes in the dusky aisles, and heard slow, hollow footfalls creeping over the marble floors. Then there was a moonbeam that shone directly into a pair of great, staring eyes in a picture over the altar, or, at leasf, they seemed staring because the rest of the face was in shadow, and she fancied that they regarded her with a look of stern displeasure, and even if she closed her eyes she couldn't help seeing them all the time. Tlow could Nora have been so cruel as to leave her there, she thought, and would it ever be morning again, and should she ever get away from that dreadful place in the world ? The minutes seemed as long as hours in passing, by, and Julie, crouching in her corner trying to hide away—from what or whom, she could hardly tell—thought that she had waited there as long as the longest night that ever was, when there was a noise at the outer door and theannties Fes RES Colm