Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-16

that is good have not found out, but
| am sure that il is not pleasant to go into
| a tobacco shop to buy stamps as one has
| to do il branch postofflce is not near.
A red light in front of a store indicates
! tobacco, matches, stamps and a letter
| box.
My ma takes lessons of Marie while
she cleans the room in the morning.
"AimeZ-vous la pomme-de- terre?'
| says Marie, with & loud, sentnetious ac-
| cent, or she pulls the covering of the bed
over the pillows, in the French fashion.
"Aimez-vous Ia pomme-de-terre?'
repeats my ma, dutifully. 'Oh, vous
| parlez Franchise trIs bien!'' exclaims
Marie, blandly. then, "Aimez- vOus la
| soupe?' etc., through all the contents
OF kitchen and grocery. Then Marie
bargains for an English lesson. "Bread-
de, meat-te," che says, as she walks
over the floor with
CLOTH UNDER HER FEET,
which is the French manner of sweeping;
"But-te, but-te,'' but she can never
get any further on butter, though she
can say, by virtue of opening her mouth
very wide, "good-de marrning, Meess
Prshde!''
Wednesday evenings we have tea after
dinner and the liberty to dance. Satur-
day evenings, monsieur, the Protestant
| pastor, comes to lead a simple service.
cannot understand him yet, but there
is deep, reVerent thrill IN his voice
when he says, "Seigneur, that is q
whole prayer in itself. Sunday even
ings every English governess and lonely
student in Paris has an invitation to tea,
ND ma lie a wi a -
CHEEKY Scotch face beams and CLOVIS over
the tables full of guests. After tea we
sing the dear old familiar hymns that
seem so doubly dear in a foreign land.
By-the-way, we offended a Protestant
mission service the other day, and can you
imagine how funny it seemed to hear the
Moody and Sankey Gospel songs sung in
French? 1t W as little sif ones grand
mother should suddenly begin speaking
foreign tongue.
Christmas eve I attended the midnight
mass at the Madeleine, with our two
American musicians. The stars were
glowing softly in the blue sky, the boule-
wards glittering and glIStening, and
throngs of people strollinE along, gazing
in the store windows and stepping TO buy
trifies at the little booths which are erect
ed along the sidewalks for the holidays.
Only Paris sidewalks could spare the
room for such lines of little wooden
houses. All sorts of heathpuish noises were
| abroad, too, for everything is permitted
at this time of year. The most absolute
IL ear-splitting of these holiday tortures
ia made by rapidly drawing a waxed
string from little wooden box; there is
about two yards of noise in the box and
one foot of it is quite sufficient to give q
sensitive person lockjaw of the auTicular
organs. At IL o'clock, when we entered
the church, we found seats with difficult
ty. and, by the way, one always has to
pay.
THREE OR FOUR CENTS FOR a SEAT
in Catholic church. 1t was all so
strange and dreamy, that long wait in
the quiet, sleepy crowd; the great church
itself, glowing with rich colors and
cleaning with statuary, seemed vision
like and unreal. We saw the red flame
glimmer again in the great brass lamp
which hangs burning night and day be-
fore the altar, relIghted every Christmas
eve in symbol OF the light of the world
born that night; we gazed at the blazing
altar until a luminous haze formed itself
| over our eyes through which the life
the altar seemed in truth TO be bearing
up the beautiful white Magdalene in their
snowy white arms, and to stir with the
motion of their snowy wings the draper
les of two other angels who knelt on the
corners of the altar. Then softly the
sound OF the organ rolled down from the
gallery at the back of the church
as from heaven itself, responded to
by the strong quivering joy of
violins and cellos concealed behind the
altar. The music rose, and swelled and
fell again into an accompaniment for one
voice, clear as q dew-drop, soft as a
rose. It seemed tor an instant as if one
OF the marble angels had opened his lips;
then we knew it was only human boy IS
voice in quaint old Latin hymn-but
did ever boy sing like this boy? His
pure, passionless tones rose to the dome
like winged birds, then fell softly,
softly upon the ear like the first snow
flakes upon the ground. 1t was innocence
and purity, joy and peace Iiquified into
sound, and as the earth absorbs the
whiteuess of the snow-fiakes, so the cold
sweetness of those heavenly sounds sunk
into our hearts. It was five minutes of
twelve; there was silence, then the organ
and the instruments and the child 8 voice
above all joined in the Latin version of
"Come All Ye Faithful - the last verses
being repeated by a heavy chorus of
priests which filed in ut that moment.
IL was enough to make ones heart sing,
that grand old hymn so graudly sung;
there was in It the joy of the new tidings,
the song of
ANGELS To WATCHING SHEPHERDS
and the dawn of the greatest day that
ever iightened earth!
This is all can tell you Of the SER
wee, for after this was so desperately
sleepy that did not know whether IL
was Christmas or Fourth of July, or
whether these bright things in front OF
me were tRper-lights or Roman candles.
Christmas day was blessed 10y the soft
est and most radiant sunshine. Eighty
people arrived for dinner, and Miss
Pryde had special beam of welcome for
each one. The tables were gorgeous
with baskets of fruits and bon bons,
trimmed with ribbons and artificial
flowers; the sun was shining through the
long windows upon evergreens, holly and
nd laI;