heart I turned homewards.

If I had the least doubt about the wonderful elasticity of the Irish
mind, or its talent for adaptation, it would have been dispelled as I
passed again through the village. I had no idea I was so popular, or
that my little labors were so warmly appreciated.

"Well, thank God, we have _himself_ whatever."

Gentle reader, "himself" and "herself" are two pronouns, that in our
village idioms mean the master and mistress of the situation, beyond
whom there is no appeal.

"Wisha, the Lord spare him to us. God help us, if _he_ wint."

"The heads of our Church, God spare them long! Wisha, your reverence
might have a copper about you to help a poor lone widow?"

I must say this subtle flattery did not raise my drooped spirits. I went
home, sat down by my little table, and gave myself up to gloomy
reflections.

It must have been eight o'clock, or more, for the twilight had come
down, and my books and little pictures were looking misty, when a
rat-tat-tat rang at the door. I didn't hear the car, for the road was
muddy, I suppose; but I straightened myself up in my arm-chair, and drew
my breviary towards me. I had read my Matins and Lauds for the following
day, before dinner; I always do, to keep up the old tradition amongst
the Irish priests; but I read somewhere that it is always a good thing
to edify people who come to see you. And I didn't want any one to
suspect that I had been for a few minutes asleep. In a moment, Hannah,
my old housekeeper, came in. She held a tiny piece of card between her
fingers, which were carefully covered with her check apron, lest she
should soil it. I took it--while I asked--

"Who is it?"

"I don't know, your reverence."

"Is 't a priest?"

"No, but I think he's a gintleman," she whispered. "He talks like the
people up at the great house."

She got a candle, and I read:--

Rev. Edward Letheby, B. A., C. C.

"'Tis the new curate," I said.

"Oyeh," said Hannah, whose dread and admiration for the "strange
gintleman" evaporated, when she found he was a mere curate.

I went out and welcomed with what warmth I could my new cooeperator. It
was too dark for me to see what manner of man he was; but I came to some
rapid conclusions from the way he spoke. He bit off his words, as
riflemen bite their cartridges, he chiselled every consonant, and gave
full free scope to every vowel. This was all the accent he had, an
accent of precision and determination and forma