carry them off. There,
I don't want to talk too much about it. The money is nothing, but the
girls and boys----'

'It seems strange to me,' said Hyacinth, 'that when you think that way
you should go on belonging to your Church.'

'Desert the Church!' said Maguire. 'We'll never do that. How could we
live without religion? And what other religion is there? I grant you
that your priests wouldn't rob us, but--but think of the cold of it.
You can't realize it, Conneally, but think what it would mean to
a Catholic--a religion without saints, without absolution, without
sacrifice. Besides, what we complain of is not Catholicism. It's a
parasitic growth destroying the true faith, defiling the Church.'

'Yes,' said Tim Halloran, 'and even from my point of view how should we
be the better of a change? Your Church is ruled by old women who think
the name of Englishman the most glorious in the world. You preach
loyalty, and I believe you pray for the Queen in your services. A nice
fool I would feel praying that the Queen should have victory over her
enemies.'

For a long time afterwards this conversation dwelt in Hyacinth's mind.
Tim Halloran he knew to be practically a freethinker, but Maguire
regularly heard Mass on Sundays, and often went to confession. It was a
puzzle how he could do so, feeling as he did about the religious Orders.
So insistent did the problem become to his mind that he found himself
continually leading the conversation round to it from one side or
another. Mary O'Dwyer told him that she also had a sister in a nunnery.

'She teaches girls to make lace, and wonderful work they do. She is
perfectly happy. I think her face is the sweetest and most beautiful
thing I have ever seen. There is not a line on it of care or of
fretfulness. It seems to me as if her whole life might be described as
a quiet smile. I always feel better by the mere recollection of her face
for a long time after I have visited her. Oh, I know it wouldn't do
for me. I couldn't stand it for a week. I should go mad with the quiet
restraint of it all. But my sister is happy. I can't forget that. I
suppose she has a vocation.'

'Vocation,' said Hyacinth thoughtfully. 'Yes, I can understand how that
would make all the difference. But how many of them have the vocation?'

'Don't you think vocation might be learnt? I mean mightn't one grow into
it, if one wished to very much, and if the life was constantly before
one's eyes, beautiful and ca