se I
can't prove it. Look at that!"

He pointed to a grewsome heap of cinders, half-burnt papers, brown
ashes, etc., that choked up the grate.

"Yerra. Glory be to God!" said Mrs. Darcy, appealing to an imaginary
audience, "he calls the sweepings of the altar, and the clane ashes,
dirt. Yerra, what next?"

"This next," he said, determinedly; "come here." He took her out and
pointed to the altar cloth. It was wrinkled and grimy, God forgive me!
and there were stars of all sizes and colors darkening it.

"Isn't that a disgrace to the Church?" he said, sternly.

"I see no disgrace in it," said Mrs. Darcy. "It was washed and made up
last Christmas, and is as clane to-day as the day it came from the
mangle."

"Do you call that clean?" he shouted, pointing to the drippings of the
candles.

"Yerra, what harm is that," said she, "a bit of blessed wax that fell
from the candles? Sure, 't is of that they make the Agnus Deis."

"You're perfectly incorrigible," he said. "I'll report the whole
wretched business to the parish priest, and let him deal with you."

[Illustration: "Do you call that clean?"]

"Begor you may," said she, "but I'll have my story first."

And so she had. Father Letheby gave me his version afterwards. He did so
with the utmost delicacy, for it was all an indirect indictment of my
own slovenliness and sinful carelessness. I listened with shamed face
and bent head? And determined to let him have his way. I knew that Mrs.
Darcy would not leave for America just yet.

But what was my surprise on the following Sunday, when, on entering the
sacristy to prepare for Mass, I slid along a polished floor, and but for
the wall would probably have left a vacancy at Kilronan to some
expectant curate. The floor glinted and shone with wax; and there were
dainty bits of fibre matting here and there. The grate was black-leaded,
and there was a wonderful firescreen with an Alpine landscape. The clock
was clicking steadily, as if Time had not stood still for us all for
many years: and there were my little altar boys in snowy surplices as
neat as the acolytes that proffered soap and water to the Archbishop of
Rheims, when he called for bell and book in the famous legend.

But oh! my anguish when I drew a stiff white amice over my head, instead
of the dear old limp and wrinkled one I was used to; and when I feebly
tried to push my hands through the lace meshes of an alb, that would
stand with stiffness and pride, if