At the moment she entered, the men were leaving their cells, and
mounting the stone stairs in regular order, on their way to the chapel
above. The noisy files went up and down and to the right and to the
left, shuffling and scraping and making a great tumult. The men were
dressed in blue, and were seen indistinctly through the lofty gratings.
From above and below and all around her there came the metallic snapping
of bolts and the rattle of moving bars; and so significant was
everything of savage repression and impending violence, that Miss Eunice
was compelled to say faintly to herself "I am afraid it will take a
little time to get used to all this."
She rested upon one of the seats in the rotunda while the chapel
services were being conducted, and she thus had an opportunity to regain
a portion of her lost heart. She felt wonderfully dwarfed and belittled,
and her plan of recovering souls had, in some way or other, lost much of
its feasibility. A glance at her bright flowers revived her a little, as
did also a surprising, long-drawn roar from over her head, to the tune
of "America." The prisoners were singing.
Miss Eunice was not alone in her intended work, for there were several
other ladies, also with supplies of flowers, who with her awaited until
the prisoners should descend into the yard and be let loose before
presenting them with what they had brought.
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