Oh! Alice, Alice, those milky ways!

Alice, Alice, how long you are!
The hour is late and the church is far;
Slowly, more slowly, the church bell rings--
Alice, Alice, put on your things!'

Really it was not in Narcissus' plans to wait at the school till Alice
appeared. The Misses Curlpaper were terrible unknown quantities to him.
For a girl to have a boy hanging about the premises was a capital crime,
he knew. Boys are to girls' schools what Anarchists are to public
buildings. They come under the Explosives Acts. It was not, indeed,
within the range of his hope that he might be able to speak to Alice. A
look, a long, immortal, all-expressive look, was all he had travelled
fifteen miles to give and win. For that he would have travelled fifteen
hundred.

His idea was to sit right in front of the nave, where Alice could not
miss seeing him--where others could see him too in his pretty
close-fitting suit of Lincoln green. So down through the lanes he went,
among the pear and apple orchards, from out whose blossom the clanging
tower of the old church jutted sheer, like some Bass Rock amid rosy
clustering billows. Their love had been closely associated from its
beginning with the sacred things of the church, so regular had been
their attendance, not only on Sundays, but at week-night services. To
Alice and Narcissus there were two Sabbaths in the week, Sunday and
Wednesday. I suppose they were far from being the only young people
interested in their particular form of church-work. Leander met Hero, it
will be remembered, on the way to church, and the Reader may recall
Marlowe's beautiful description of her dress upon that fatal morning: