Most people must have agreed with Mrs. Raynor that the Confirmation that
day was a pretty sight, at least when those slight girlish forms and fair
young faces moved in a white rivulet along the aisles, and flowed into
kneeling semicircles under the light of the great chancel window,
softened by patches of dark old painted glass; and one would think that
to look on while a pair of venerable hands pressed such young heads, and
a venerable face looked upward for a blessing on them, would be very
likely to make the heart swell gently, and to moisten the eyes. Yet I
remember the eyes seemed very dry in Milby Church that day,
notwithstanding that the Bishop was an old man, and probably venerable
(for though he was not an eminent Grecian, he was the brother of a Whig
lord); and I think
