I was quite amused at the idea that the presence of poor people was any objection, for is it not a source of pride to Catholics that their church is open alike to the humblest and richest; so with a suggestive word from Bernard, Gabrielle’s spirited ponies flew

  “Over the hills, and far away.”

A perpetual ascent and descent it seemed—­a dusty road, for we are sadly in want of rain, and few shade-trees border the road; but once in Mount Kisco, the novelty of the little chapel quite compensated for the disagreeable features of our journey there.  A tiny chapel indeed—­a plain frame building, with no pretence to architectural beauty.  It was intended originally, I thought, for a Protestant meeting-house, as the cruciform shape, so conspicuous in all Catholic-built churches was wanting here.  The whitewashed walls were hung with small, rude pictures, representing the Via Crucis or Stations of the Cross, and the altar-piece—­not, I fancy, a remarkable work of art in its prime—­had become so darkened by smoke, that I only conjectured its subject to be St. Francis in prayer.

Although it was Whit-Sunday the altar was quite innocent of ornament, having only six candles, and a floral display of two bouquets.  The seats and kneeling-benches were uncushioned, and the congregation was composed, as Bernard said, entirely of the working class; but the people were very clean and respectable in their appearance, and fervent in their devotions as only the Irish peasantry can be.

The pastor, an intelligent young Irishman, apparently under thirty, had already said Mass at Pleasantville, six miles distant, and upon arriving at Mount Kisco he found that about twenty of his small congregation wished to receive Communion, as it was a festival; consequently, he spent the next hour not literally in the confessional, for there was none, but in the tiny closet dignified by the name of a vestry.  From thence, the door being open, we could with ease, had we had nothing better to do, have heard all of the priest’s advice to his penitents.

This ceremony over, the young Father came out in his black cassock, and taking up his vestments which lay upon the altar-steps, he proceeded with the utmost nonchalance to put them on, not hesitating to display a long rent in his surplice, and a decidedly ragged sleeve.

The Mass was a Low one, and the congregation were too poor to have an organ or organist.  Quite a contrast to a Sunday at St. Stephen’s or St. Francis Xavier’s, but the Mass is always the same, however humble the surroundings.

June 3.

We are unusually fortunate, I think, in our domestic surroundings.  Servants are proverbially the bete noire of American ladies, and the prospect of having to train some unskilled specimens of foreign peasantry weighed heavily, I fancy, upon our beautiful Ida in her new responsibility of a young Dame Chatelaine.  However, we have been, as I said, singularly successful in obtaining servants.