d priest and doctrine at his pleasure, he has
one devotion which none may take liberties with. He swears by the nuns.
He is foaming at the mouth over the injury and insult offered them by
the _Confessions_ of Sister Claire. We expose this clever woman. Picture
me, then, the despised suitor, after having pleased him by my book, and
astounded him with my poem, and mesmerized him with the exposure of
Claire, standing before him with silent lips but eyes speaking: I want
your daughter. Can even this perverse man deny me? Don't you think I
have a chance?"

"Not with Everard," said the Senator solemnly. "He's simply coke."

"You should write a book, Doyle, on the art of wooing a father-in-law,
and explain what you have left out here: how to get away with the dog."

"Before marriage," said the ready wit, "the girl looks after the dog;
after marriage the dog can be trained to bite the father-in-law."

Arthur found the _Confessions of an Escaped Nun_ interesting reading
from many points of view, and spent the next three days analyzing the
book of the hour. His sympathy for convent life equaled his
understanding of it. He had come to understand and like Sister Mary
Magdalene, in spite of a prejudice against her costume; but the motive
and spirit of the life she led were as yet beyond him. Nevertheless, he
could see how earnestly the _Confessions_ lied about what it pretended
to expose. The smell of the indecent and venal informer exhaled from the
pages. The vital feature, however, lay in the revelation of Sister
Claire's character, between the lines. Beneath the vulgarity and
obscenity, poorly veiled in a mock-modest verbiage, pulsated a burning
sensuality reaching the horror of mania. A well-set trap would have easy
work in catching the feet of a woman related to the nymphs. Small wonder
that the Livingstone party kept her afar off from their perfumed and
reputable society while she did her nasty work. The book must have been
oil to that conflagration raging among the Irish. The abuse of the
press, the criticism of their friends, the reproaches of their own, the
hostility of the government, the rage and grief at the failure of their
hopes, the plans to annoy and cripple them, scorched indeed their
sensitive natures; but the book of the Escaped Nun, defiling their holy
ones so shamelessly, ate like acid into their hearts. Louis came in,
when he had completed his analysis of the volume, and begun to think up
a plan of action. T