age and sex that atoned for the opprobrious
epithet.

"Would he like a bit of fish now? I'm going down the town, and I might
meet one of the women in from Broadhaven." Thus Mrs. Mangan,
coaxingly.

"Oh, Mrs. Mangan, please don't bother!" says Larry.

"Ah, no bother at all! Sure I was going down anyway to the chapel to
get a sup of holy water. I declare the house is bone dry! Not a drop
in it!"

After dreary winter mornings spent in reading, by the light of a
misplaced window, or age-long afternoons, drowsed through in that
torpor, mental as well as physical, that overwhelms the victim of a
prolonged sojourn in bed, Larry used to find himself looking forward
to the conversations between Nurse Brennan and Mrs. Mangan that arose
at tea-time, and followed, stimulated by the early darkness of
January, in the firelight; the southern voices rising and falling like
the flickering flames, becoming soon self-engrossed, and forgetful of
the silent listener in the bed. Sometimes sleep would lap him in slow,
stealthy peace, and the voices would die away, or come intermittently,
as the sound of a band marching through a town fades and recurs at the
end of a street. But without being aware of it, he was absorbing
knowledge, learning a new point of view, breathing a new atmosphere
that was to influence him more deeply than he could have any
conception was possible.

One evening the talk fell on the congenial topic of illness, doctors
and patients, nurses and nuns, all spinning in the many-coloured
whirlpool of talk, now one and now another cresting the changing wave.
The fact that Larry was of their own religion, counterbalanced his
belonging to an alien class, and if their consciences sometimes hinted
at a lack of discretion, they quieted them with the assurance that
"the poor child was asleep!"

"Ah, the nuns are wonderful!" said Mrs. Mangan, languishingly. "Look
how lovely they have the Workhouse Infirmary! I was taking some
flowers to Reverend Mother, and she was telling me what a beautiful
death old Catherine Macsweeny made. Reverend Mother rained tears when
she told me."

Nurse Brennan sniffed.

"Reverend Mother's a sweet woman, and the nuns are very attentive when
a person'd be dying, but indeed Mrs. Mangan, if you ask _me_, I'd
say 'twas the only time they were much use to their patients! Up at
that infirmary what have patients at night to look after them only an
old inmate, and she 'wanting' maybe!"

Larry began