Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1891-12-18
SAVED BY A SONG.
a story with the Real Christms. Fla
yor.

VOr.
1t was Christmas Eve. A cold. old fash
toned Christmas, with snow lying thick on
the ground and still falling heavily, with
touch of fog in the air. 1t was past ten
O'Clock, and the streets and lanes of the
great city were all but deserted. Merchant
and broker clerk and warehouseman. and
the rest of the busy crowd who had tnronged
those streets by day had one by one drifted
away to their homes, and the lofty ware
house doomed black and forbiddng over
the silent thoroughfares. Here and there
the CLEAN from solitary window struggled
Intellectually with the outer darkness. and
served but to bring into relief the general
gloom and solitude.
And nowhere was the darkness deeper or
the scene of desolation more profound than
In ST. Winifred's court. St. Winifred's is
one of those queer little alleys which inter
sect the heart of eastern London, and con-
sists with one exception, of houses let out
as offices, and utterly deserted by night.
The court is bounded on one side by St.
Winifred's church, while in one corner
stands quaint old house, occupying a
nearly triangular piece of ground and form
ing the exception we have referred to, hav-
ing been for many years the residence of
St Winifred's organist, Michael Fray.
Many of these ancient churches still re-
main in odd hooks and corners of the city;
relics of time when London merchants
made their homes in the same spot wherein
they earned their daily bread, worshiping
on Sunday in their narrow aisles and when
their time came asking no better resting
place than beneath those venerable flag
stones on which they had knelt in life. The
hberality of ancient founders and benefact-
ors has left many of these old churches
richly endowed, and still, Sunday after
Sunday, rector and curate mount their re-
spective desks, and struggle through their
weekly task but portly aldermen and dig
nited burgesses no longer fill the high-back
ed pews. A wheezy verger and pew-opener
with dozen or so ancient men aud women,
caretakers of adjoining warehouses or
ofhces' too often form the only congrega-
ton.
St. Winifred's, like many of its sister edi-
fees, though small in extent is a noble
monument of ecclesiastical architecture.
having been designed by an architect of
worldwide fame, and boasting stained
glass windows of the richest color and ex-
quisite design, and oaken carving of flower
and leaf, to which the touch of a master
had impaired all but living beauty. The
western extremity of the church abuts up
on narrow lane, on a week day one of the
busiest in the city but on Sundays the
broad portal is flung open in vain, for its
invitation is addressed to empty streets and
deserted homes.
The only sign of life on this Christmas
Eve, in st. Winifred's court was faint
CLEAN of Pickering freight proceeding
from one of the windows of the quaint
three-cornered house in which Michael FRAY
passed his solitary existence. Many years
before the period of our story, the same
month had taken from him wife and child,
aud siuce that time Michael Fray had lived
desolate, his only solace being the rare old
organ, the friend and companion of his
lonely hours. The loss of his wife and
daughter has left him without kith or kin.
His father and mother died in his early
youth, an only brother, gifted but way
ward youth, mad in early life run away to
sea, and there found watery grave.
Being thus left alone in the world Michael
Trays love for music, which had always
been the most marked feature of his char
acter had become itensifed into an abso-
Lutte passion. Evening after evening, when
darkness had settled on the city and none
could complain that his music interfered
with business or distracted attention from