ine Maguire fluttered after her. She had bidden
her maid disguise a dress, neither Irish nor homespun, with as much
Carrickmacross lace as could be attached to it. Lord Eustace, who
represented his father, appeared in all the glory of a silk hat and a
frock-coat. He eyed Sir Gerald's baggy trousers and shabby wideawake
with contempt, and turned away his eyes from beholding the vanity of
obviously bad form when he came face to face with the English priest in
his blazer.

A smiling nun took charge of each party as it arrived. Lady Geoghegan
plied hers with questions, and received a series of quite uninforming
answers. Her husband followed her, bent principally upon escaping
from the precincts if he could. Already he was bored, and he knew that
speeches from great men were in store for him if he were forced to
linger. The Duchess of Drummin eyed each object presented to her notice
gravely through long-handled glasses, but gave her attendant nun very
little conversational help. Lady Josephine made every effort to be
intelligent, and inquired in a dormitory where the looking-glasses
were. She was amazed to hear that the nuns did, or failed to do, their
hair--the head-dresses concealed the result of their efforts--without
mirrors. Lord Eustace was preoccupied. Amid his unaccustomed
surroundings he walked uncertain whether to keep his hat on his head
or hold it in his hands. The English priest, whose name was Austin, got
detached from Lady Geoghegan, and picked up a stray nun for himself. She
took him, by his own request, straight to the chapel. He crossed himself
with elaborate care on entering, and knelt for a moment before the
altar. The nun was delighted.

'So you, too, are a Catholic?'

'Certainly,' he replied briskly--'an English Catholic.'

'Ah! many of our priests go to England. Perhaps you have met Father
O'Connell. He is on a London mission.'

'No,' said Mr. Austin, 'I do not happen to have met him. My church is in
Yorkshire.'

The nun gazed at him in amazement.

'Your church! Then you are----

'Yes,' he said, 'I am a priest.'

Her eyes slowly travelled over him. They began at the gray trousers,
passed to the blazer, resting a moment on the college arms, which
certainly suggested the ecclesiastical, and remained fixed on his
collar. After all, why should she, a humble nun, doubt his word when he
said he was a priest? Perhaps he might belong to some order of which
she had never heard. Eccentricities of cos