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.