in to Killimaga on
yer way back. Ye'll be stayin' fer lunch, as they call it?"

"Yes, I probably shall, Ann. It will save you a little work, and there
are plenty of servants at Killimaga."

He went down the walk to the street. Ann looked after him, the rebuke
forgotten.

"Savin' me work, is it? Faith, he ought to be thinkin' of savin' his
pinnies, slashin' thim around to the likes of McCarthy." Then the
remembrance of her spoiled tirade came to her, as she thought of her
ruined dinner and the Bishop. "What did he do that fer to a man who
was the Vicar Gineral? But God forgive me. An auld woman niver knows
how to hauld her tongue. Sure, the Father is a saint anyhow, whativer
the Bishop, bad scran to him, is."

There was the eternal maternal in Ann, if nothing else was left of the
eternal feminine. It is the eternal maternal that fights and hates,
without knowing why--and loves and protects too--still without knowing,
or asking, a reason.

In the kitchen Ann saw Uncle Mac taking his ease by the table. He
often dropped in for a chat.

"Where's the Father?" he asked.

"Gone to look over McCarthy ag'in," she answered, with pleased
anticipation of the things she could safely say, without rebuke, of the
parish's chronic hypochondriac.

But Uncle Mac, while he never rebuked, yet was adroit in warding off
temptations to break the Commandments. He began to chuckle as if he
had just heard a wonderful story.

Ann looked up. "What's biting ye this mornin'?"

"'Tis what the Father said to Brinn, the man that runs the _Weekly
Herald_. Ye know him?"

"I know no good av him."

"He's not a bad fella a-tall. Ye know he has a head as bald as an aig.
Well, he was goin' to the Knights of Pythias ball, and was worrited
about a fancy suit to wear; fer it appears that thim that goes must be
rigged up. He met the Father in Jim's drug sthore on the corner, and
he ups and axes him to tell him what to wear."

"The omadhan!"

"Av coorse." Uncle Mac fell from righteousness. "He shud not have
axed such a question of a priest. But the Father had him. 'Ye want to
be disguised?' he said. 'That I do,' said Brinn, takin' off his hat to
mop the top of his shiny pate. 'What'll I wear?' The Father giv wan
glance at his head. 'Wear a wig,' sez he."

Ann chuckled, and fetched the old man the cup of tea he always expected.

"Faith, he did better nor that lasht week," she confided. "'Twas auld
Roberts at the hotel d