So she stole up the awful stair and into the wide gallery, as a chidden dog might steal across the room to creep under the master's table.

Not daring to look up, she went with noiseless difficulty down a steep step or two, and perched herself timidly on the edge of a seat, beside an old lady, who had kindly made room for her.

When she ventured to lift her eyes, she found herself in the middle of a sea of heads.

But she saw in the same glance that no one was taking any notice of her, which discovery acted wonderfully as a restorative.

The minister was reading, in a solemn voice, a terrible chapter of denunciation out of the prophet Isaiah, and Annie was soon seized with a deep listening awe.
The severity of the chapter was, however, considerably mollified by the gentleness of the old lady, who put into her hand a Bible, smelling sweetly of dried starry leaves and southernwood, in which Annie followed the reading word for word, feeling sadly condemned if she happened to allow her eyes to wander for a single moment from the book.
After the long prayer, during which they all stood--a posture certainly more reverential than the sitting which so commonly passes for kneeling--and the long psalm, during which they all sat, the sermon began; and again for a moment Annie ventured to look up, feeling protected from behind by the back of the pew, which reached high above her head.