began to feel that I was no longer Daddy Dan, the old pastor of
Kilronan, but a young curate that thinks life all roses, for his blood
leaps up in ecstasy, and his eyes are straining afar.

One by one the singers came forward, timid, nervous, but they went
through their parts well. At last, a young lady, with bronze curls cut
short, but running riot over her head and forehead, came forward. She
must have dressed in an awful hurry, for she forgot a lot of things.

"What's the meaning of this?" I whispered angrily.

"Sh', 't is the fashion," said Father Letheby. "She's not from our
parish."

"Thank God," I said fervently. I beckoned to Mrs. Mullins, a fine
motherly woman, who sat right across the aisle. She came over.

"Have you any particular use of that shawl lying on your lap, Mrs.
Mullins?" I said.

"No," she said, "I brought it against the night air."

"Then you'd do a great act of charity," I said, "if you'd just step up
on that stage and give it to that young lady to cover her shoulders and
arms. She'll catch her death of cold."

"For all the money you have in the National Bank, Father Dan," said Mrs.
Mullins, "and they say you have a good little nest there, I wouldn't do
it. See how she's looking at us. She knows we are talking about her. And
her mother is Julia Lonergan, who lives at the Pike, in the parish of
Moydore."

Sure enough, Phoebe Lonergan, for that was her name, was looking at
us; and her eyes were glinting and sparkling blue and green lights, like
the dog-star on a frosty night in January. And I knew her mother well.
When Julia Lonergan put her hands on her hips, and threw back her head,
the air became sulphurous and blue. I determined not to mind the
scantiness of the drapery, though I should not like to see any of my own
little children in such a state. Whilst I was meditating thus, she came
to the end of her song; and then let a yell out of her that would
startle a Red Indian.

"Why did she let that screech out of her?" said I to Father Letheby.
"Was it something stuck in her?"

"Oh, not at all," said he, "that's what they call a _bravura_."

I began to feel very humble. And then a queer thing happened. I thought
I was a young curate, long before the days of Maynooth statutes, and all
these new regulations that bind us as tightly as Mrs. Darcy's new alb.
We were out at the hunt on a glorious November morning, the white frost
on the grass, and the air crisp and sunny. The smell of the