seven o'clock precisely
On Thursdays , in the winter , the aisles resounded for an instant with the clang of wooden shoes , when the students of the catechism came and went . Sometimes a poor woman , leading one or two children and carrying a baby in her arms , came to burn a little candle on the stand at the chapel of the Virgin , or perhaps one heard by the baptismal font the wailing of a new-born babe ; or , more often , the funeral of some poor wretch : a deal box , covered with a black cloth and resting on two trestles , hastily blessed by the priest , before a little group of women , the men being free-thinkers , and waiting the conclusion of the ceremony in the drinking-shop across the way , where they played bagatelle for drinks . Therefore , the old Abbé Faber , one of the vicars of the parish , is sure that twice out of three times he will find no penitent before his confessional , and has only to hear , for the most part of the time , the uninteresting confession of some good women . But he is conscientious , and on Tuesdays , Thursdays , and Saturdays , at seven o'clock precisely , he betakes himself regularly to the chapel of St. John , only to make a short prayer and return should there be nobody there . One day last winter , struggling against a heavy wind with his open umbrella , the Abbé Faber toiled painfully up the Rue Mouffetard , on the way to his parish , and , almost certain that his toil was useless , he regretted to himself the warm fire he had just quitted in his little room in the Rue D'homond , and the folio _ Bollandiste _ which he had left lying on the table , with his eye-glasses on its open pages . But it was Saturday night , the day when certain old widows , who earned their scant income in the neighboring boarding-houses , sometimes sought absolution for the morrow 's communion . The honest priest could not , therefore , excuse himself from entering his oak box and opening , with the punctuality of a cashier , that wicket where the devotees , for whom the confessional is a spiritual savings-bank , make a weekly deposit of their venial sins .