again I am admitted; but Pierre retires to a restaurant and drinks red wine. Would it be dreadful for him to enter the school building, which is also the nuns' dwelling?

It is concluded that I shall first go up-stairs to visit the first class. For this class Pierre has told me that the Sisters receive five francs a month for each pupil; for the second class, three francs; for the third, two; and for the fourth, one. Also, in this lowest class, the commune obliges them to take the poor for nothing. Having entered the class-room, the two Sisters stand, and the woman in charge stands, and the pupils stand, and I stand. The head Sister shows me their work. Some of the girls are embroidering in bright colors,-prettier work than that I saw in the school at Paris. I am shown, too, a large piece of good crocheting, which is for an eiderdown, or one of those bed-cushions before mentioned. And there is a chemise, too, with neat stitches in the hem; and they are making langes,-useful things for a newly-born: "A traveller has a new-born, and we are making langes." The girls sew three hours a day. I am invited to put questions, and I ask, "What are three-fourths of sixteen?" I am pretty sure that the Sister on my left speaks the correct answer; but one pupil suggests seven, and another five. After a little questioning, however, they answer right. I tell them whence I came, and ask them what ocean I had to cross. Silence. Then a delicate voice says, "Arctic Ocean." I turn to a map of the world in a corner, and another voice says, "Pacific." I tell them that I could come from my country by the Pacific and Indian Oceans; and then I tell them about some nuns I had met coming back to France from New Zealand, and show their track, so the question goes unanswered by the scholars. Then we go into other classes. In one room there is a blackboard about twelve

inches long and six broad. In another there is a larger one; and when those workmen drink less wine and save their wages, and are permitted to visit the public schools, one of them can have it reblacked, and make it a blackboard indeed. In one of the classes I am shown a piece of writing, headed "Dictation." In the lowest class I am shown a book with lessons in italics, intended to teach pupils to read writing. One child reads aloud to me something about a legislative assembly,-I think of their first Revolution. She does not get along very well. Another, however, does better. I remark that it is a difficult subject, and the head Sister says so too. They are quite nice-looking, the two who accompany me round; but their building is inferior to the Brothers'. I do not stay long, and in parting I tell these two how the public is allowed to visit our schools: we want the parents to interest themselves in the progress of the children. They hear me, and we part with mutual politeness. I called the Brother monsieur and the Sister madame. When we are again upon our way, I begin to express to Pierre sympathy for the Little Brothers. I would rather go around as I am now doing than be one of those Little Brothers. He, too, thinks their condition not enviable. He thinks that they cannot have much, but adds that in the winter, when their school is larger, it is probable that they receive presents. I learn that they can make visits. Pierre invited the head Brother to come and see them, and the Brother said that he had lately visited Pierre's uncle,—doubtless the one whose brother is a curé. But when I think about these things, I remember that it is possibly in hope of another reward that the Brother lives as he does.

And still, as we are walking, Pierre tells me that one of those Sisters of St. Joseph keeps a drug-store. I tell him

that I think not. Mrs. Apothecary, at Paris, told me that women cannot keep drug-stores. He is sure that the Sister does, and says that it would be inconvenient for them to go to Romilies whenever they want medicine. I reply that not only does Truth live at the bottom of a well, but that she is hidden there, like those carps in the mud. He further says that this Sister was taught in the School of Medicine and Pharmacy at Lyons, and she received a diploma of capacity; and without that she could not sell "anything of pharmacy" here. I think he adds that she could not sell poisons. He says, "We had an herborist here, who sold things belonging to pharmacy, and he gave a woman an application for her arm. She got worse, and he was put into prison for a year, at Romilies, and never came back here."

Wednesday, July 10th.-At the dinner-table Pierre and I talk upon different subjects, one of which is the estimation in which they hold us in comparison with Jews. I entirely absolve him from having introduced the subject. He and I were alone at the table in the dining-room, and I am guilty of having asked, "Why do you think Jews are better than Protestants ?" "Because," he replies, "they say that if the Messiah has come, the Catholics are in the right; but if, on the contrary, he has not come, the Jews are. And as for Protestants, they are a sect apart,-a new religion, with no ancient foundation." "But," say I, "the religion of the Jews is not so ancient as paganism." "Oh, yes; it is the most ancient of all religions in the world; it was the religion of Adam: Adam expected the Messiah, and the Jews still expect him." I tell him that I wish he could have seen a religious meeting of Methodists that I

saw in a wood in my country, when there were perhaps five thousand and how this was sung,—

persons,

"The blood of Christ, it cleanses me

As soon as I believe."

"But that," he says, "does not prove that their religion is ancient, and in ancient things which concern religion we should not make any change." "But we do not call the religion of the Protestants a new religion," I say; "we call it the Christian church reformed." "But why reform that which is ancient ?" he asks. "There are," I reply, “a great many people among us who excessively fear Catholics; who fear that if they should become numerous and strong among us, that we should lose our liberty of religion and our free government." What Pierre answered to this I am not prepared at this time to put into print. "And how many years," I ask, "will you give us to mount the

ladder, as you have expressed it, and be obliged to begin to go down?" "I do not know; certainly not more than five or six hundred years; perhaps not more than two hundred; who can tell exactly?"

Part of this conversation takes place after dinner, but at the table I say to him, "I want to send you a book of compositions of our young people that were sent to the Philadelphia Exposition, and brought here by one of your commissioners of education, and translated into French; that will show you the ideas of our young men and young women. I wish you would read one by a boy of sixteen or seventeen upon newspapers, and so you will see what we think about the liberty of the press; but, as the Scripture says, I am afraid that that will be putting new wine into old bottles, and that these ideas will ferment in your mind." "You need not be afraid," he says, "because I

have read so much. For the eight years since the war that I have not been able to labor, I have read all sorts of books." Apparently in order to show me the freedom of his opinions, he brings into my own room a copy of the New Testament in the Protestant version. He says that the curé forbids their having it; that the Epistles of Philemon, Timothy, and Titus are not found in their version (in which I afterwards find, in my own country, that he is in the wrong). He adds that there are ridiculous things in this version which may make people laugh, and when I inquire what they are, he says, "One that speaks nearly thus: that a woman has pain when she gives birth to a child, and that ought not to be put into religious books; and there are many simple things like that in this version. We do not have them in our Catholic one; there is nothing in it to make people laugh; we keep such things for romances, like this of Alexander Dumas."* "And why," I ask, "are not your translations of the Testaments sold?" "They are sold; most people have an abridgment, a little one like that you saw at school,—and here are the four Gospels in this book; every Sunday there is read part of an Epistle and part of a Gospel." I look at the small volume, which is "The Complete Parishioner, or Prayers for the Use of the Diocese of Lyons."

This afternoon we go upon another excursion; we go after wool, and come home shorn.

I have mentioned that in the neighboring village of St. Alban the daughter of the teacher passed the school examination, although no girl was presented from our com

The two versions are very nearly alike. It is probable that he had not seen theirs.