er Healy's himself,
no less. Does he say anything about the Faith?" asked Mrs. Quirk.

"I shall buy a fine home, with the church not half a mile away. You can
make the church your second home, as you did in Collingwood," read
Kathleen.

Samuel Quirk marched relentlessly into the room, his face showing the
most determined incredulity it could assume.

"Let me see the letter," he said, calmly taking it from Kathleen.

"Could Denis write like this?" he asked.

"And who better?" cried Mrs. Quirk. "Wasn't he the smartest boy at
school? Do you remember the day he won all those prizes?"

A smile of pride overspread the old man's face for one moment, then he
remorselessly subdued it.

"I am thinking it is some scamp that has heard how soft you are," he
remarked, as he read the letter. "Hem! I wonder how much money that
will be? And when will he be here?"

As if in answer to his question, the sound of wheels was heard on the
avenue. Mrs. Quirk flew to the window, while the old man followed more
sedately.

"It is himself!" cried Mrs. Quirk. "Let me be the first to bid him
welcome."

She almost ran to the front door in her excitement, to find the strong
arms of a man around her.

"Glory be to God! And is it Denis?" she sobbed.

"Who else would it be?" answered the newcomer.

CHAPTER V.

DENIS QUIRK.

Cairns was compounded of energy, his policy to snatch from the hands of
progress all that was good, and make the uttermost use of it. "Try all
things," he would say. "Throw away the rubbish, and keep that which is
enduring." Under his management, "The Observer" advanced from a
second-class country paper to one but little inferior to the
metropolitan organs.

One man whom he found on the staff he classified as hopeless.

"Worse than this," he added, speaking to Desmond O'Connor, to whom he
unburdened himself, "'Gifford will never learn. He believes himself to
be a journalistic planet. I don't mind an ordinary honest fool that
knows it is a fool, but a fool that regards its own inane folly as the
final thing in wisdom is hopeless. Gifford must go."

Here, however, Cairns found himself opposed to his employer. Ebenezer
Brown had so high a respect for Gifford that he had been sorely tempted,
after the death of Michael O'Connor, to place the sub-editor in the
editorial chair. For this promotion Gifford was fully prepared, and only
a very small incident preserved Ebenezer Brown from ruining his paper.
It had