"It is certainly not very old," rejoined Mrs. Redmond; "the college has been established less than ten years. It is a great thing to have founded it here in the midst of the Acadians, and it has made the boys of Clare much more ambitious."
"What good is a college education to them?" asked Priscilla; "fishing and farming seem to be their chief occupations."
"This is really only a preparatory school," replied Mrs. Redmond, "and the boys who are going into the Church or into the professions enter other colleges in Canada or in France. The Father told us with pride of the high standing of some of the graduates in their work in other colleges."
"If I do not care for the college," said Priscilla, "I love this church of Abbé Sigogne's; it makes me think of a New England meeting-house, with its white walls and steeple."
Mrs. Redmond's sketch was hardly finished when the others came out from the college. Madame Bourque was in her most talkative mood, as she led them across the road into the white church. This time Priscilla went with them and looked with some interest at the paintings on the wall, and the sacred emblems, and the tablet inscribed to the memory of Abbé Sigogne.
Martine, it must be admitted, found something amusing even in this church, for inside the gallery where the choir boys sat were many pictures of little boats, and even of full-rigged ships scratched in deeply with a penknife, presumably by the fingers of mischievous young singers.
Pierre, who happened to be with Martine when she made this discovery, did not laugh with her, but shaking his head solemnly, said, "Ah, those pictures show what really fills the heart of the Acadian boy."
Madame Bourque was disappointed that her party of Americans did not care to visit the girls' school near by, but the hour was late, and the tired-looking horses were not likely to make speed on the way home.
"We have really seen so much," said Mrs. Redmond, "that we shall need to think it all over before seeing more, and you have been so good a guide that in our one visit to Church Point we have learned as much as most persons do in two."
"We have learned a great deal," murmured Priscilla to Amy, "but I always feel that Madame Bourque paints the Acadians as much more remarkable than they are. But I should like to have seen Father Sigogne baptizing Indian pappooses; they say that he used to wipe their faces with his gown to find a spot where he could kiss them."