Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/236

 blurred; those who stand at a distance often get the true values which we miss by being too near. Robert was very silent as they drove afterward to the home of the priest, where he was to pass the night. M. Bienveillance, who had accompanied them so far, took leave of Robert, cordially inviting him to return to his house the following day. The kindly man, whose name so well expressed his nature, touched his horses with the whip, and was soon lost to view as the carriage disappeared down the narrow wood-road. They heard his cheery voice calling to his animals in the distance, and then the silence of the forest settled down upon them.

The home of the priest was situated under a spreading live-oak whose undermost branches scarcely cleared the roof of the lowly structure. The rough wooden building, had it not been dignified by the cross which rose above it, canopied by the spreading branches of the tree, might have passed for the cabin of a wood-cutter. Its interior was hardly superior to the outside. A few rough benches, some religious pictures on the wall, and an altar as simple as was the priest who officiated before it,—these were all it contained. At one end a small space was partitioned off from the church, and here was spread the couch of the missionary,—a blanket thrown over a bed of bare wooden planks.