The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1879-10-29
IN THE ORGAN-LOFT.

The light of September sunset lay
full on the elm tree boughs, and check
cred the pavement below with soft rosy
glooms. when a cab from the station
stopped in front of the quaint brick
building which did duty as seminary y
to the Bracey theological students, and
young girl got out of it. Even-song
was in Progress. From the ornate little
Gothic chapel which stood at right an
giles with the long wing where the stu
dents housed, sounded Gregorian
chant, rendered by n chorus of fresh
manly voices. A little strip of closely
shaven lawn divided the chapel from the
street. Its smooth green was broken
now by long bars of pink light, and here
and there "A Redeemed leaf on the ivy
above glowedr like Il carbuncle in the
sunset fire. 1t was pretty and peace
full scene, not at al resem bling her pre-
conceived ideas OF what America was
going to be, thought ASmee Trenchard,
as, after dismissing her cabman, she
uNpsed "a moment on the doorstep be-
y ringing the bell. A birds shadow
fitted across the illuminated grass; the
chant soltened and died; sleepy twit-
ter was audible In the tree-tops. From
the far distance came the soft Ginning of
~
dewy silence won her attention so long
that lack-gowned figures began to pour
out of the chapel before she remembered
what she had to do. Then she rang, and
entered, but not SO soon as to be unob-
served, and young Chasuble poked his
chum in the rios and whispered, Hey! /!
What's thatp A visitor 10 the doctor!
1t must be that girl from Nova Scotia,
the deans daughter, you know, I'll tell
you what, she's pretty"
Faith rather than vision prompted this
statement, but Frank Chasuble was JUS
titled in making it, nevertheless. Aimee
was pretty, very pretty. With the slen-
derNwaying figure which. with her
rame, she had inherited from her Cana
Han mother, she combined that beauty
81 especially the dover of English girls,
a complexion of unequaled fairness -
true roses and cream-and lips as fresh
and RED as a dewy clove-pink. Her hair
had golden glints in it, and waved ma
turally back from n white forehead,
beneath whose pencilled brows looked
out pair of clear eyes, as blue and fear
less as a child's, in whose regard inno-
eoace and ignorance were charmingly
combined. For Amiee had been brought
up in solitude by shy bookworm of a
father, and ~ gentle rectangular old aunt,
and this was absolutely her first peep
into the wider world which Law beyond
her guarded school-room bound. DR..
Bracey, an old college friend of Canon
Trenchard's, had taken Nova Scotia, the
year before, as the objective point of his
summer vacation, and had then and
there fallen in. love in a fatherly way
with his friends daughter. Poor dear
little thing, "he called her in his thoughts,
FOR she seemed to him cooped up and
lonely, quite unlike the girls he was in
the habit of seeing at home, and he piled
her father with entreaties and arguments,
till at length he won reluctant consent
for visit to 81 the States during the en-.
suing year. This visit. for one reason
and another, had been postponed till
now, so here was Aimee Just arrived,
with three months OF delightful novelty
and adventure before her, and bringing
a heart as unhackneyed as a baby's to
meet them, whatever they might prove
TO hold.
AS may well be imagined, her advent
created tumult among the "Bracey
Boys" Absorbed as these young gentle
men were supposed to be in devotional
observance and theological lore, inter
walls more or less existed during which ii
was both possible and natural to notice
the propinquity of pretty girl, and
when both prettiness and prOpinquity
were so unusual, these intervals became
more rather than less. Aimee had