Somewhere in the mysterious shadows an unseen musician touched
the keys of the great organ, and the voice of the Cathedral
throbbed through its echoing aisles in tremulous waves of sound.
Above the deep tones of the bass notes a delicate melody floated,
like a lark singing above the surf.
Though the great church seemed empty but for sound and color,
there lingered among its shadows a few persons who loved it well.
There were priests and a few worshipers. There was also Father
Varennes, the Verger, and far away in one of the small chapels
opening from the apse in the eastern end good Mother Meraut was
down upon her knees, not praying as you might suppose, but
scrubbing the stone floor. Mother Meraut was a wise woman; she
knew when to pray and when to scrub, and upon occasion did both
with equal energy to the glory of God and the service of his
Church. Today it was her task to make the little chapel clean and
sweet, for was not the Abbe coming to examine the Confirmation
Class in its catechism, and were not her own two children, Pierre
and Pierette, in the class? In time to the heart-beats of the
organ, Mother Meraut swept her brush back and forth, and it was
already near the hour for the class to assemble when at last she
set aside her scrubbing-pail, wiped her hands upon her apron, and
began to dust the chairs which had been standing outside the
arched entrance, and to place them in orderly rows within the
chapel.
She had nearly completed her task, when there was a tap-tapping
upon the stone floor, and down the long aisle, leaning upon his
crutch, came Father Varennes.
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