he flagged floor with a firmer step than ever.

All at once the crying of the child ceased and there was a confused
rumble of voices overhead. My father stopped, his face straightened, and
his voice, which had rung out like a horn, wheezed back like a whistle.

"What's going doing? Where's Conrad? Why doesn't Conrad come to me?"

"Don't worry. He'll be down presently," said Father Dan.

A few minutes passed, in which nothing was said and nothing heard, and
then, unable to bear the suspense any longer, my father went to the foot
of the staircase and shouted the doctor's name.

A moment later the doctor's footsteps were heard on the stone stairs.
They were hesitating, halting, dragging footsteps. Then the doctor
entered my father's room. Even in the sullen light of the peat fire his
face was white, ashen white. He did not speak at first, and there was an
instant of silence, dead silence. Then my father said:

"Well, what is it?"

"It is . . ."

"Speak man! . . . Do you mean it is . . . _dead?_"

"No! Oh no! Not that."

"What then?"

"It is a girl."

"A gir . . . Did you say a girl?"

"Yes.

"My God!" said my father, and he dropped back into the chair. His lips
were parted and his eyes which had been blazing with joy, became fixed
on the dying fire in a stupid stare.

Father Dan tried to console him. There were thistles in everybody's
crop, and after all it was a good thing to have begotten a girl. Girls
were the flowers of life, the joy and comfort of man in his earthly
pilgrimage, and many a father who bemoaned his fate when a daughter had
been born to him, had lived to thank the Lord for her.

All this time the joy bells had been ringing, and now the room began to
be illuminated by fitful flashes of variegated light from the
firework-frame on the top of Sky Hill, which (as well as it could for
the rain that had soaked it) was sputtering out its mocking legend, "God
Bless the Happy Heir."

In his soft Irish voice, which was like a river running over smooth
stones, Father Dan went on with his comforting.

"Yes, women are the salt of the earth, God bless them, and when I think
of what they suffer that the world may go on, that the generations may
not fail, I feel as if I want to go down on my knees and kiss the feet
of the first woman I meet in the street. What would the world be without
women? Think of St. Theresa! Think of the Blessed Margaret Mary! Think
of the Holy Virgin herself. . . ."

"Oh,