_Sentier Byron_ leading up to it. But, on the other hand, they have
called one of the lake steamboats after Bonivard, which, upon the whole,
I should think would be more satisfactory to him than the poem. At any
rate, I should prefer it in his place.


X

The fine Gothic chapel where we heard our pasteur preach was whitewashed
out of all memory of any mural decoration that its earlier religion may
have given it; but the gloss of the whitewash was subdued by the dim
light that stole in through the long slits of windows. We sat upon
narrow wooden seats so very hard that I hope the old dukes and their
court were protected by good stout armor against their obduracy, and
that they had not to wait a quarter of an hour for the holy father to
come walking up the railroad track, as we had for our pasteur. There
were but three men in the congregation that day, and all the rest were
Suissesses, with the hard, pure, plain faces their sex wear mostly in
that country. The choir sat in two rows of quaintly carved seats on each
side of the pulpit, and the school-master of the village led the
singing, tapping his foot to keep time. The pastor, delicate and wan of
face, and now no longer living, I came afterwards to know better, and to
respect greatly for his goodness and good sense. His health had been
broken by the hard work of a mountain parish, and he had vainly spent
two winters in Nice. Now he was here as the assistant of the
superannuated pastor of Villeneuve, who had a salary of $600 a year from
the Government; but how little our preacher had I dare not imagine, or
what the pastor of the Free Church was paid by his parishioners. M.
P---- was a man of culture far above that of the average New England
country minister of this day; probably he was more like a New England