HANDBELL PRACTICE

On Sundays, Jane and Leah sometimes went to St. Anne’s Episcopal Church.  Jane, having come from one of the most austere periods in Anglican history, was at first startled by St. Anne’s High Church ceremony and ritual, but she quickly came to love all the “smells and bells.”  At Christmas, the girls were asked to be in the new handbell choir.

The choir mistress had a friend in Boston, a Mrs. Shurcliff, who had started an English handbell choir two years earlier.  Inspired by this, the choir mistress had ordered a set of handbells for the church, and on Christmas Eve, during the Festival of Lessons and Carols, the handbell choir would make its debut, and accompany “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” and “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”.

 

Jane and Leah wanted some more practice, and so rehearsed just their parts, accompanied by Liesel Elizabeth, before heading off to church.  This was sure to be the beginning of a new tradition at St. Anne’s.