IX THE STATE OF DENMARK 153 



when a rustling and a lifting of heads told that the 

 moment for the churchwarden and the silken rope had 

 come, and we found ourselves indulging the Princess^ 

 of Wales and her daughters with a stony British 

 stare. 



To feel immediately hulking, superfluous, and ill- 

 dressed is the inevitable drawback to the aesthetic 

 satisfaction of seeing the Princess of Wales, and those 

 who wished to keep their minds in their Prayer Books 

 must also have kept their eyes there. The Danish 

 lady at my left did not, indeed, attempt to do either, 

 but beamed with a franker admiration than w^e had 

 the sincerity to display, and at long intervals asked 

 me to find her place in an English Prayer Book with 

 quite infantine confidence. A soupgon of the Danish 

 accent lisped prettily in the chanting of the choir- 

 boys, converting " things " to " sings " and " faith " 

 to " face " in flute-like heterodoxy, but the harvest 

 hymns w^ere given w^ith a will that drowned nation- 

 ality. After the third the pangs of hunger beset us, 

 and for the second time that morning we withdrew 

 before the foot of the preacher had reached the 

 pulpit steps. 



But not with equal felicity. A door in the transept 

 was temptingly near, it admitted us to a species of 

 vestry, probably a lair of churchwardens, and neatly 

 furnished with a table, a blotting-pad, and a tall hat, 

 so far as the wild eye of flight could see. From this 

 we escaped by a door with a clanking ecclesiastical 

 latch, and went hurtling into the open air down a 

 steep flight of steps. Here, indeed, our position 

 became desperate. We were in a narrow paved strip 

 between the church wall and high railings at the lake's 

 edge ; at one end was a buttress, and the conclusion 

 of all things, at the other a space enclosed by more 

 1 Queen Alexandra, 



