The Story of a Summer | Page 3

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