LITMIR.BIZ

      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 bête 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 Châtelaine. However, we have been, as I said, singularly successful in obtaining servants.

      To my great delight, there is not one ugly name in our little household, although composed of eight members, commencing with Queen Esther as mamma has been named; then we four girls—la Dame Châtelaine, with her fair face, dark, pensive eyes, and modest dignity; Gabrielle, or Tourbillon, our brilliant pet, and the youngest of our quartette, although her graceful figure rises above the rest of us; my sister Marguerite, la Gentille Demoiselle; and I, Cecilia.

      Then come the household retinue: Bernard, the coachman, already introduced, a smart-looking young Irishman, whom the maids always find very beguiling; Lina, the autocrat of the kitchen, a little, wiry-looking woman from Stockholm, formerly cook, so she says, to King Charles of Sweden; and Minna, the maid.

      Minna is a pretty young Bavarian, who has been only fifteen days in the Land of Liberty, but she has already learnt, I am amused to see, not to address a lady as "gnädige Frau," or "Fräulein"—a style of address imperative in South Germany from a maid to her mistress. Minna has not, however, imbibed all of the democratic principles that will, I fear, come to her only too soon, for she has not yet learnt to emulate her mistress in dress. It is really quite refreshing to see a servant dressed as a servant. Minna is the perfection of neatness, and her plain stuff or print gowns are sans reproche in their freshness. In the matter of aprons she must be quite reckless, for they always look as if just from the ironing-table. They are made, too, in an especially pretty fashion that I have never before seen out of Munich. Scorning chignons, Minna appears with her own luxuriant hair in massive braids wound about her well-shaped head, and as to-day is Sunday and a Fest-tag, she adorns herself with a large shell-comb. She has very pretty, coquettish ways, that have already melted the heart of our hitherto unsusceptible Bernard, and it is quite charming to hear her attempts to converse with him in her broken English.

      Minna came to me this morning directly after breakfast, and said, "Where shall I go to church, Fräulein Cecilia?"

      "I do not really know, Minna," I replied. "You are a Lutheran, I suppose?"

      "Yes, Fräulein Cecilia."

      "There is no church of that sort here," I said, "but there is a Reformed Church next door."

      With a very doubtful expression, she said: "I will see, Fräulein. And bitte, is not the Pfingsten a Fest-tag in America? In our country, you know, it is more than Sunday, and the people always amuse themselves."

      I explained to her as clearly as I could, that Pfingsten (Whit-Sunday) was only a Fest-tag in her church, mine, and the Church of England, and that it was never in this country a Fest-tag, outside of the religious observance.

      A very perplexed face was the result of my explanations; why Pfingsten should not be Pfingsten the world over, and a public holiday with all sorts of merry-makings, she could not understand.