being
a spy. If so he is evidently a judge of character, and his selection
of Rose as a sweet-heart is a high compliment to her.

"He promised her a gold bracelet next week," said Marion, "and Rose is
very mysterious about where he gets the money."

"As long as he doesn't steal it from me," I said, "I don't care where
he gets it."

"It's very queer all the same. Rose says that a lot of the young men
in the village have heaps of money lately, and I thought it might
have something to do with smuggling."

This is what distracted my mind from the story of the man who murdered
Godfrey. I could not help wondering where Rose's young man and the
others got their money. They were, I assumed, the same young men who
frequented the co-operation store during the midnight hours. It was,
of course, possible that they might earn the money there by some form
of honest labour. But I could not imagine that Crossan had started one
of those ridiculous industries by means of which Government Boards and
philanthropic ladies think they will add to the wealth of the Irish
peasants. Besides, even if Crossan had suddenly developed symptoms of
kindly idiocy, neither wood-carving or lace-making could possibly have
made Rose's freckly faced young man rich enough to buy a gold brooch.
The thing puzzled me nearly as much as did the _Finola's_ midnight
activity.

CHAPTER VII

All competent critics appear to agree that art ought to be kept
entirely distinct from moral purposes. A picture meant to urge us on
to virtue--and there are such pictures--is bad art. A play or a novel
with a purpose stands condemned at once. The same canon of criticism
must, I suppose, apply to parties of all kinds, dinner-parties,
garden-parties, or house-parties. A good host or hostess ought, like
the painter and the novelist, to aim at making her work beautiful in
itself; and should not have behind the hospitality a cause of any
kind, charitable or political.

I myself dissent, humbly, of course, from this view. Pictures like
_Time, Death and Judgment_--I take it as an example of the kind of
picture which is meant to make us good because I once saw it hung up
in a church--appeal to me strongly. I do not like novels which aim at
a reform of the marriage laws; but that is only because sex problems
bore me horribly. I enjoy novels written with any other purpose. I
hate parties, such as those which Godfrey instigates me to give, which
have no object except that