and the intermittent labor of Murphy _pere_, who, in
his sober intervals, was a sufficiently efficient stone-cutter and
mason.

He had built the big entrance gates, and the long stone wall that
enclosed the ten acres of "bounds." He had laid the foundation of the
new west wing--known as Paradise Alley--and had constructed all the
chimneys and driveways and tennis courts on the place. The school was a
monument to his long and leisurely career.

Mr. and Mrs. Murphy, with an unusual display of foresight, had
christened their first baby after the school. Ursula Murphy may not be a
euphuistic combination, but the child was amply repaid for carrying such
a name, by receiving the cast-off clothes of generations of St. Ursula
girls. There was danger, for a time, that the poor little thing would be
buried beneath a mountain of wearing apparel; but her parents
providentially discovered a second-hand clothes man, who relieved her of
a part of the burden.

After Ursula, had come other little Murphys in regular succession; and
it had grown to be one of the legendary privileges of the school to
furnish the babies with names and baptismal presents. Mrs. Murphy was
not entirely mercenary in her yearly request. She appreciated the
artistic quality of the names that the girls provided. They had a
distinction, that she herself, with her lack of literary training, would
never have been able to give. The choosing of the names had come to be a
matter involving politics almost as complicated as the election of the
senior president. Different factions proposed different names;
half-a-dozen tickets would be in the field, and the balloting was
conducted with rousing speeches.

There was one hampering restriction. Every baby must have a patron
saint. Upon this point, the Murphys stood firm. However, by a careful
study of early Christian martyrs, the girls had managed to unearth a
list of recondite saints with fairly unusual and picturesque names.

So far, the roll of the Murphy offspring read:

Ursula Marie, Geraldine Sabina, Muriel Veronica and Lionel Ambrose
(twins), Aileen Clotilda, John Drew Dominick, Delphine Olivia, Patrick
(he had been born in the summer vacation, and the long-suffering priest
had insisted that the boy be named for his father), Sidney Orlando
Boniface, Richard Harding Gabriel, Yolanda Genevieve. This completed
the list, until one morning early in December, Patrick Senior presented
himself at the kitchen door, with