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