I. THE CHURCH AND THE PEOPLE

The sunlight of the clear September afternoon shone across the roofs of the City of Rheims, and fell in a yellow flood upon the towers of the most beautiful cathedral in the world, turning them into two shining golden pillars against the deep blue of the eastern sky.

The streets below were already in shadow, but the sunshine still poured through the great rose window above the western portal, lighting the dim interior of the church with long shafts of brilliant reds, blues, and greens, and falling at last in a shower of broken color upon the steps of the high altar.  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.  He stopped near the chapel and watched her as she whisked the last chair into place and then paused with her hands upon her hips to make a final inspection of her work.

“Bonjour, Antoinette,” said the Verger.

Mother Meraut turned her round, cheerful face toward him.  “Ah, it is you, Henri,” she cried, “come, no doubt, to see if the chapel is clean enough for the Abbe!  Well, behold.”

The Verger peered through the arched opening, and sniffed the wet, soapy smell which pervaded the air.  “One might even eat from your clean floor, Antoinette,” he said, smiling, “and taste nothing worse with his food than a bit of soap.  Truly the chapel is as clean as a shriven soul.”