Having already learned something of the local habits, we bade our driver take us to the temple.  That is the distinctive name of a Protestant church in these Roman Catholic lands.  The morning service was in progress when we entered the square and austere little chapel.  Every pew was occupied, the men and women taking different sides of the one stone-paved aisle.  A gentle-looking old man was reading from a book with much clearness and expression, and in a singularly pleasant voice, what we soon found to be an excellent sermon.  At its close a quaint, slow hymn was sung, and the congregation was dismissed.  To our amusement, the simple folk formed a double line outside the door to inspect us as we emerged.  It was easy to imagine their interest in an apparition so unusual as foreign visitors, and we submitted to their curious but entirely respectful scrutiny, wishing that our aspect might give them half the satisfaction we had in watching their eager faces and noting their droll costumes.  Ludicrously high stocks and “swallow-tail” coats of brown homespun made the dress of the men different from that of corresponding rustics in America.  The chief peculiarity in the women’s attire was a straw hat, of which the towering crown, decked with huge bows, and the vast flapping brim, were like an extravagant caricature of the poke-bonnets of our grandmothers.

As we stood demurely in the midst of the group, the old man who had read, and who proved to be the schoolmaster, hastened out to greet us.  It was his habit, he said, in the pastor’s absence, to conduct the service.  For more than thirty years, although the parish had repeatedly been for months without a minister, he had not allowed the temple to remain closed a single Sunday.  His wife appeared directly, and both insisted, with apologies for their peasant fare, that we should stop to dinner at their house, a few yards from the church.  We were in truth nothing loath to accept the invitation, and found little to excuse in the savory soup, the fresh-laid eggs and the fruit that composed the simple feast, while we were scarcely less regaled with the neatness of the rooms and the spectacle of well-washed floors and spotless though coarsely-woven linen.  But most of all to be enjoyed and remembered was the peep we got into this good old man’s life and history.  From his youth he had been schoolmaster at St. Laurent, and it seemed never to have occurred to him that he might claim a more distinguished post.  Unconscious of any special self-sacrifice, he told us about his work, heroic through its quiet faithfulness, in that obscure hamlet.  He enumerated with pride the various pastors and teachers who had been his scholars—­among the former his eldest son, among the latter two of his daughters.  Listening to his talk, we understood the intelligence of expression in many faces and the large proportion of young men at the service of the morning.