. It was a
comfortable room; cheerful in its wide windows, warm with a bright
hearthfire, and well worn with long years of service.

Terry had found friendship and counsel here since his boyhood, had
been one of the procession that passed through the door in search of
wisdom and cheer. All the gossip of the town came to the priest: he
knew of Terry's hunting trip and of the climax which had scandalized
the sterner factions of the community. He was of those who knew Terry
best, and entertained no misgivings about the state of his immortal
soul.

They talked fitfully, as intimate friends do. The old man knew that it
was worry over the town's harsh reaction to the Sunday fox hunt that
had brought Terry to him. He broached the subject.

"Dick, I have wanted to see you since Sunday morning. I had a question
to ask you nobody else could answer."

As Terry turned to him with somber mien he concluded, his eyes
twinkling: "I wanted to know if it was the best fox ever!"

And that was all, though Terry stayed to sup with him. Till nine
o'clock they sat before the fire, the priest in a worn rocker drawn up
close to the hearth: the single log burning glorified his fine old
face as he placidly rocked and pondered.

He had spent the morning among his foreign parishioners, who lived in
the squalid section of the town, across the river. A frugal,
law-abiding lot, they furnished the brawn needed in the three pulp
factories and lived a life apart from the balance of the towns-people,
bitterly but voicelessly resenting the villagers' careless ostracism
of all who came under the easy classification of the term "wop." There
existed a tacit agreement among property owners that no house north of
the river should be sold or leased to a foreigner, and that no garlic
might taint the atmosphere their children breathed in school, they had
erected a small schoolhouse upon the southside. So, sequestered six
days in the week in a settlement that was entirely foreign,
communicating their thoughts in the tongues of the Mediterranean and
the Balkans, the southsiders mingled with Americans only during the
brief hours of Sunday worship.

In his morning visit Father Jennings had again met with several
evidences of Terry's curious influence over the foreigners. Terry
understood them instinctively, grasped their viewpoints and ideals,
and was the only layman on the northside in whom they confided, called
in to settle knotty problems and to partake of