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CHAPTER XV.
KYRIE ELEISON.
The second Saturday afternoon following was hot and calm. The lamp
burning before the tabernacle in Pere Jerome's little church might have
hung with as motionless a flame in the window behind. The lilies of St.
Joseph's wand, shining in one of the half opened panes, were not more
completely at rest than the leaves on tree and vine without, suspended
in the slumbering air. Almost as still, down under the organ-gallery,
with a single band of light falling athwart his box from a small door
which stood ajar, sat the little priest, behind the lattice of the
confessional, silently wiping away the sweat that beaded on his brow and
rolled down his face. At distant intervals the shadow of some one
entering softly through the door would obscure, for a moment, the band
of light, and an aged crone, or a little boy, or some gentle presence
that the listening confessor had known only by the voice for many years,
would kneel a few moments beside his waiting ear, in prayer for blessing
and in review of those slips and errors which prove us all akin.
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