able. What did she mean?' 'She meant,' I said, to
reassure him, 'that you have kept her carefully out of the coast-guard
station; that you have not allowed her to interfere with the men, or
their wives, or their servants; that therefore you have put many a
sixpence out of her pocket; and that she must have her revenge. Dismiss
her jargon from your mind as soon as you can.' 'More easily said than
done, Father,' he replied, and he then began to mutter: 'A white cloth
and a stain never agree.' What _does_ she mean?"

"The old story of Voltaire," I said, when my curate had finished. "Don't
forget the children's prayers."

* * * * *

On Christmas eve he called at noonday, just as we were going out to the
midday confessional. He had nothing new to tell. He was rather gloomy.

"You'll meet Miss Campion in the church," he said; "she'll tell you
all."

"I don't think," I said, to cheer him--for where is the use of fretting
in this queer world?--"there was so much need for Ormsby to go as far as
Ceylon to find Buddha and the Nirvana. Look there."

Leaning against the blank wall opposite my house were three silent
figures. They were a little distance apart, and they leaned against
their support with the composure of three cabinet ministers on their
green benches on the night of a great debate. Their feet were slightly
parted, and they gazed on the road with a solemn, placid expression, as
of men to whom the Atlantean weight of this weary world was as the down
on a feather. Calmly and judicially, as if seeing nothing, yet weighing
all things, they looked on pebble and broken limestone, never raising
their heads, never removing their hands from their pockets. They had
been there since breakfast time that morning, and it was now past noon.

"My God," said Father Letheby, when I told him, "'t is awful!"

"'T is the sublime," I said.

"And do you mean to tell me that they have never stirred from that
posture for two long hours?"

"You have my word for it," I replied; "and you know the opinion
entertained about my veracity,--'he'd no more tell a lie than the parish
priest.'"

"I notice it everywhere," he said, in his impetuous way. "If I drive
along the roads, my mare's head is right over the car or butt, before
the fellow wakes up to see me; and then the exasperating coolness and
deliberation with which he draws the reins to pull aside. My boy, too,
when waiting on the road for a few minutes