"Nonna!" she replied.

"By Jove!" I exclaimed, "St. Gregory's mother!"

"Naw," she said, "it's grandmaw's name."

"It's a pretty name all the same," I replied; "may you wear it as long
as grandma."

The girls were all sitting at the machines waiting. Down near the end of
the hall were two individuals in close conversation. They looked prosaic
and dull amid all the excitement. When I got near them I saw the man,
who was looking at me steadily, with one eye closed, whilst I was
speaking. He was an infidel, a Giaour, an incredulous, questioning,
calculating unbeliever in all my rosy forecastings. He was the manager
over from Loughboro'. The lady was manageress, and had come over to
superintend the initial proceedings at Kilronan. Somehow I didn't like
them. They chilled the atmosphere. There was that cool, business-like
air about them, that L. S. D. expression that shears off the rays of
imagination, and measures and weighs everything by the same low
standard. I saw Father Letheby buoyant, enthusiastic, not merely
hopeful, but certain of the success of his enterprise. I saw these two
business people chatting and consulting together, and I knew by their
looks that they were not quite so sanguine. It was "the little rift
within the lute."

As I went home, pondering and thinking,--for I didn't wait for the tea
and cake that are supposed to be essential to all these gatherings,--I
heard the patter of a light foot behind me, and in a minute Bittra was
by my side.

"Dear me!" she panted, "you are so young and active, Father Dan, it is
hard to keep up with you."

By which kind sarcasm I knew that Bittra had something good to tell me.

"Shall I call you Bittra or Beata?" I replied, looking down at her
flushed face.

"Beata! Beata! Beatissima!" she said, in a kind of ecstasy; "it is all
right; and God is _so_ good!"

"I always object to the fireworks style of elocution on the part of my
curate," I said, "and if you could shed a calm, lambent light on this
ecstatic episode, it would suit my slow intellect."

"Slow," she said, stopping,--"do you know, Father Dan, that is, you _do_
know, that you have just made one of the nimblest, wittiest, drollest,
most eloquent speeches that ever was made. I heard Mrs. S---- say that
she never could have believed--"

"Beata," I interrupted seriously, "my purgatory will be long enough, I
believe. Indeed, if I get out in the general exodus on the Day of
Judgment I shall consider mys