THE WILES SEXTON MAGINNIS MAUR1CE-FRANCIS-EGAN 11 -\ ? THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "It s not me that would be after meddliu THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR I. KELLER NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO 1910 Copyright, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1909, by THE CENTURY Co. Published, March, 1909 " ;, ,:: TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT A MAN OF LETTERS IN LOVE WITH LIFE 789418 CONTENTS CHAPTER i THE SOUL OF MAGINNIS 3 ii THE VALET OF THE PASTOR 26 HI THE WARNING 65 iv THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT 113 v THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA 161 vi THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS 207 vii THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE 243 viii THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS . . .284 ix THE UNPAYING GUEST 317 x THE CONVERSION OF SEXTON MAGINNIS . 351 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE "It snot me that would be after meddlm . . Frontispiece That brogue went to Sister Margaret s heart 9 Tell Mrs. Magee, with my compliments, to keep you there 61 "No, I will not bring little Edith to common-sense and- Baumgarten" lli A manner which symbolized both duty and pleasure . . 135 "I m the wan that can get it for you" I 43 "I wondher myself whether we have n t a lunatic amongst us" 149 Baumgarten " I in just wonderin whether you d look so much like a smilin baby if you had a mother-in-law " 169 I D-l Maginnis s inspiration . . "Ach, the mother-hand!" repeated Scherm-Weinhausen . 195 Rosalia, who did not in the least understand, frowned slightly 201 " Faith, when he s Mayor of Bracton, you can have him" 219 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "Is itdestroyin my honor you d be?" .... .227 And she began to cry until all the childer bawled out loud for company 231 "Ah-a," murmured Maginnis, "he said that!" . .235 " There s no use of my waiting to see Mother Juliet now" 253 An aspiration < 265 " So Herself s in it !" said Maginnis . 271 Maginnis jumped from his seat and caught her arm . . .279 Even now he could sing " The Kerry Dance" . . .331 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS THE SOUL OF MAGINNIS SISTER MARGARET S rosy face looked more rosy as the fresh, frosty air struck her cheeks. The convent habit supposed by the romancers to represent a pensive soul dead to all human interests had no manner of special detachment in her case; it fitted very well with the air of bustle that pervaded the city landscape. Every ne gro for miles around was shoveling snow from the pavements, and Sister Margaret, who was of an energetic turn, clasped her hands in de spair within her spotless sleeves as she viewed 3 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS the movements of two black "boys" of forty and sixty on the pavement of the convent. Pompey and Caesar turned their spades with the graceful languor of those who wave fans in; the ".heat of summer. *<-- : "It s rrie it s I," she said, correcting her self /for, although Sister Margaret was not a teaching sister, she was a grammatical purist "it s I that would like to tuck up my habit and get down amongst them. Sure, one Kerry man would do more in half an hour with his hands than all of them with their wooden spades." There had been a ring at the convent door bell, and Sister Margaret had, in the tempo rary absence of the portress, opened it; but no one was in sight. Sister Margaret, from her position on the high steps, looked about sharply. A young girl with dancing blue eyes, a sprightly step, and high bows in her hat as blue as her eyes, 4 THE SOUL OF MAGINNIS went by, smiling and nodding at the good sis ter. "Mary Ann Magee," she said to herself; "and it s Mary Ann Magee here and Mary Ann Magee there, with her blue bows and her gay ways, and the foolish young men paying her attention, and her mother working away at the wash-tub. T is the way with Irish mothers they re foolish and tender with their children. Mrs. Magee is a Tipperary woman, and Tipperary is n t Kerry. And what did you want?" Sister Margaret was accustomed to tramps. The convent was by no means rich, and the prioress, Mother Juliet, had some economic no tions about the treatment of the poor who could work; but nevertheless, and in spite of Sister Margaret s cool and deliberate gaze, which pierced through the excuses of men, the weary if not always worthy wanderer found the convent alms plain but bounteous. 5 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS The man who had suddenly bobbed up from under the iron steps had a gray kitten in his hand. His reddish, uncut hair had made its way under the battered crown of his hat. His upper garment, buttoned close to the chin, was a coat of the kind once called "Prince Albert," glossy, worn; and it had evidently been made for a much shorter person, and this man was very tall. His shoes were tied with rope, and his pink, frost-bitten wrists shone below the frayed sleeves of the glossy coat. "Another drinking man, I suppose," thought Sister Margaret, discontentedly. One look at the clear complexion, marred by several weeks growth of sandy-colored hair, undeceived her. She knew her world well, and tramps were as much of her world as the innocent little boys who beseeched her for molasses and bread between school hours. There was an honest look in the helpless brown eyes of the man that to her experienced 6 THE SOUL OF MAGINNIS gaze showed that he was not of the vicious class. "It s some woman to manage him poor creature ! he needs. It s the way with half the men their mothers don t live long enough, and the wives most of them get are without gumption at all. Well, what is it, my good man?" she asked in her professional tone. "I am sorry to keep you waiting sisther," said the man, with a rich brogue, "but I just jumped down to pick up this poor omadhaun of a little cat, that s got itself almost frozen." The sister examined the stiff ball of gray fur. "I 11 take it. Sure, if Sister Rosalie can t bring it to life by the kitchen fire it must be dead entirely." "Is there any work for me, sisther?" That brogue the brogue of her place in Kerry went to Sister Margaret s heart. She knew that Mother Juliet s economic theo- 7 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS ries would not be softened by the fact that a tramp had a Kerry brogue, for the poor prior ess, with all her learning, scarcely knew the brogue when she heard it! She was well aware, too, that the helplessness of any man would never appeal sufficiently to Mother Juliet to cause her to make work for him when the resources of the convent were taxed to pay the retainers absolutely needed for the care of the heating apparatus and other details which Sister Margaret s capable hands could not touch. Something to eat, and perhaps a note of appeal for him to some kind priest, were all Sister Margaret saw, in her mind s eye, for the pathetic Kerry man. Still, Mother Juliet had one weakness, and this was for souls. She would go far for a strayed sheep; and if this man s soul were in danger, he might be taken on to sift the ashes and to help with the boiler until his spiritual health should be restored. With fear and 8 That brogue went to Sister Margaret s heart THE SOUL OF MAGINNIS trembling and the sound of the old homely inflection in her ears, Sister Margaret asked the question : "Do you go regularly to mass, my good man?" The man hung his head, and even the wisp of hair that straggled beneath his hat seemed to grow redder. Sister Margaret s face was illuminated with a beautiful and hopeful smile. "Tell the truth, now, as you re an honest man/ she said. "To tell the truth as an honest man," re plied the applicant, with lead on his voice, "I Ve been neglectful. I Ve been to mass off and on the year, but not reg lar." "And have you gone to your duties?" con tinued Sister Margaret, knowing well that her hopes for her compatriot depended largely on his having not done nearly everything he ought to have done. The man blushed and hesitated. II THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Sister Margaret tried to assume a professional manner as portress. "I ve not been reg lar," he said. "If I were near the holy sisthers, and workin for them, maybe God would give me the grace " "Have you been away from your duties for more than a year?" asked Sister Margaret, with apprehension. "Oh, it s me that s ashamed to confess it !" said the man. "It s me that s ashamed sis- ther, to say three years and more, come Eas- ther." "Thanks be to God !" said Sister Margaret, involuntarily. "You re in mortal sin, man ! Go back to the kitchen gate, and I 11 tell Moth er Juliet." Mother Juliet had just come into the old- fashioned parlor through the great mahogany doors of Henry Clay s time when Sister Mar garet entered. She held Street s "Economics for Young Minds," and the chapter on 12 THE SOUL OF MAGINNIS "Money" was marked by a lace-edged picture of St. Stephen with a large arrow in his side. Her most important class was over, and as she had put her whole heart in it, she was tired and absent-minded. Sister Margaret loved and revered her ; but, as she was a convert and not from Kerry, Sister Margaret often felt that she needed unusual management. "Well, my dear sister?" asked the prioress, looking, in her white robe, like a very tired and well-bred statue. "It s a soul, reverend mother, that s waiting nourishment and work at the back gate," said Sister Margaret "a soul " "Yes, yes," said the prioress. "Well, sis ter, you know what to do. There are tickets for the Charitable Association on the mantel piece in the kitchen. Although, of course, I agree with the traditions of the Church as to alms-giving, yet I cannot help thinking that the sanest way in which to treat our fellow- 13 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS creatures must be based on scientific principles. In the Holy Father s encyclical on Labor " "Ah, since I heard Father Dudley s sermon on The Husks of Science/ it J s little I care for it, reverend mother. There s a poor soul at the gate, mother, that has n t been to his duty for three years, and the number of times he has missed mass I can t " "Dear, dear! You don t tell me so, Sister Margaret !" "And it s little good the tickets of the Charitable Association will do a poor man in a state of sin." "Give him a good cup of coffee, and send him with a note to Father Dudley. He will touch the poor man s heart and lead him to confession. Sister Margaret, I notice that the window-panes in the laundry are not so clear" "It s little you know of the heart of man, reverend mother," said Sister Margaret; 14 THE SOUL OF MAGINNIS little you know ! It s not the higher educa tion that will help you there. If you were brought up with the farming-folk in the old country, things would be different. The heart of man " A smile hovered about the edges of the prioress s lips. She understood the heart of woman well enough to see dimly into Sister Margaret s plan. "Well," she said, with the impatience of these details caused by absorption in her thoughts of her own teaching "well, do what you can; but remember, we are poorer than even our vow of poverty requires, Sister Mar garet. You, in your great kindness, forget that our resources are not what they once were since the railway, with its locomotives crossing the street, has injured the school. Give him something for doing the laundry windows." "I can t forget, reverend mother," said Sis ter Margaret, "that there s a soul to be saved." 15 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Set him to work then," answered the prior ess, growing graver at once, "and I will go," she added rather timidly, "and read something spiritual to him. There are some beautiful passages in St. Francis de Sales, and he may be an intelligent man." "Little she knows, God help her!" thought Sister Margaret. "Sure, a good talk of old Kerry days will be better for the boy than all the spiritual reading in the world." The prioress was relieved by the look of hesitancy on Sister Margaret s face. "You know better, sister, how to deal with the case; but get the poor man off to Father Dudley at once, just as soon as you see him softening a little." "It s strange," thought the prioress, with a gentle perception of the situation, "that all Sis ter Margaret s distressed souls are Irish." In a few minutes Lewis Maginnis was at work, on a ladder in the laundry, battling with 16 THE SOUL OF MAGINNIS that small amount of matter that seldom gets out of place in a convent. His story was plain. He had drifted from a Kerry farm. It was evident that he was simple, good-na tured, rather soft in temperament, and at the beck of circumstances. He had worked when he could find work for his unskilled hands; when the winter came on he had drifted again southward this time. In the course of a long and busy life Sister Margaret had never enjoyed herself so much as on the afternoon of her meeting with Lewis Maginnis. Here was material made for her molding hand, clay ready for the potter; here was an opportunity of furthering the progress, spiritual and material, of a soul from her part of Ireland, and of having her own way in a good cause. Sister Rosalie, who ruled the kitchen, was urged to unusual efforts in the way of coffee and waffles by a graphic description of Lewis THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Maginnis s aptitude for fetching and carry ing, for this serving sister had reason to re gard the colored masculine aids as trifling. Maginnis himself was delightfully docile and sufficiently respectful. In the twenty-five years of his life he had never done anything but what circumstances compelled him to do. It was cordial indeed to find circumstances im personated by such a kindly and motherly force as Sister Margaret. When he had finished the laundry windows, refreshed himself with unlimited waffles and coffee, and sifted the ashes, Sister Margaret sent him over to the Widow Magee s to enter there as a lodger until her inventive mind could discover some new means of employment for him. "He has the making of a decent man in him/ Sister Margaret thought, as she watched him cross the wide street. "Heaven knows how he s to pay for his lodging at the 18 THE SOUL OF MAGINNIS end of the week; but God is good. It would n t be safe to send him over there with Mary Ann about, if I knew she wouldn t try to make a fool of him, at least, till he has a new suit of clothes, the creature!" Still, Sister Margaret had her doubts. She respected the Widow Magee s virtues, and she helped her in many ways, but she felt that, once out of her sight, the widow was the abject slave of her frivolous daughter with the ag gressive blue bows. Lewis Maginnis was provided with a warm room for the present, and Sister Margaret, at the sound of one of the many bells which are as the voice of God, dismissed him from her mind. He appeared on the next morning early, very much improved by a bath and a razor, and with a hat, a little too large, which had once belonged to the late lamented Magee. Mother Juliet, absorbed as she was, could not help observing that Maginnis seemed to 19 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS be gradually replacing all the other intermit tent "help." The colored "boys" disappeared, Pompey whose soul had been saved several times, and who had spiritual relapses whenever he wanted unusual attention going last. "Maginnis seems to be a hard worker," Mother Juliet said one day as she examined the crystal-clear laundry windows. "He is that, reverend mother," answered Sister Margaret, with a just pride; "and Father Dudley has him to serve his mass nearly every day, and sometimes he blows the organ when there s a funeral in the chapel." "I trust he will not neglect our work," said the prioress, in alarm. "You can depend on that, reverend mother," answered Sister Margaret. "Such a conscientious worker with the ashes I never saw." Mother Juliet looked pleased. To have a 20 THE SOUL OF MAGINNIS man at peace with his Creator and capable of looking after the boiler and the ashes was an unusual thing. Sister Margaret s plans for the advancement of Lewis Maginnis were more and more suc cessful; and Mrs. Magee, who now received a modest stipend from her lodger, seconded them warmly. Maginnis of April 30 was no longer Maginnis of February 3. A trans formation had taken place. He was erect, re spectably clad, alert, well shaven on Wednes days and Sundays, and still the very symbol of docility. If Sister Margaret had been de void of artistic feeling, she would have let the result of her work alone; but a retainer of the church retired from active service, and Sister Margaret at once suggested her protege to Father Dudley. One of the colored "boys" Pompey was recalled to make up the lapses in convent at- 21 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS tendance. Mother Juliet was alarmed; there was a noticeable difference in the laundry win dows. "It s for the good of his soul that he should be as near Father Dudley as possible, reverend mother," spoke Sister Margaret. Mother Juliet had nothing to say to this, but she could not help hoping that Sister Mar garet s next treasure would have a less sensi tive soul. Maginnis rose more and more in favor with the fathers at the church. This Sister Mar garet noticed with pleasure. The artist was strong within her, and already she had for gotten the interests of the convent in the vision of Lewis Maginnis as sexton of the big church. "A Kerry boy, too/ she said to herself; "and he 11 soon be with a buttonhole bouquet in his coat, showing the sisters to their pew of a Sunday." Pompey was at work for good or for bad 22 THE SOUL OF MAGINNIS and Caesar had returned; Maginnis came only with messages from the church, or to give counsel when something went wrong with the boiler. Mother Juliet missed him, but she was silent; she had become rather tired of his soul. On Easter Sunday Sister Margaret s dream was realized. Beaming with pride, his red hair shining above his black coat, which held a large red rosebud, stood Lewis Maginnis be side the church door, waiting for the sisters to arrive. They came, and, as Maginnis led the way to their pew, Sister Margaret felt all the justifiable pride of a sculptor whose statue has been bought by a really appreciative patron. In the afternoon Maginnis came to the con vent by the front door, as he had at first come. He asked for Sister Margaret, and laid his glossy silk hat on the big volume of Butler s "Lives of the Saints" that graced the table. 3 23 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Well, Lewis Maginnis," said Sister Mar garet, entering with Sister Rosalie. " T is a happy man you ought to be." "And I am, sisther thanks be to God and you." "It is I had little to do with it, Maginnis," said Sister Margaret, with much humility. Maginnis blushed. "If it was n t for you, sisther, I d never have met her." There was a pause. A light flashed upon Sister Margaret. "And so you re going to settle down and it s well," said Sister Margaret, nodding as one who knows the heart of man. "There is no better woman living than Mrs. Magee. And I hope you 11 both keep that Mary Ann in order." "It was Mrs. Magee I thought of first/ said Maginnis, with simplicity, "but Herself thought I d better take Mary Ann, as it would steady 24 THE SOUL OF MAGINNIS her; and Magee in his grave only ten months would set the neighbors talking." Sister Margaret did not speak. A vision of the high blue bows obscured the ruddy smile of Lewis Maginnis. When she spoke it was as if to a far-distant man. She had assisted him successfully in his evo lution. Spiritually, he was in a state of grace ; physically, he was as the dragon-fly to the tad pole; artistically, he was what she had con ceived he ought to be. He looked, as he stood in the parlor, with a rosebud in his lapel, the ideal sexton. And yet II THE VALET OF THE PASTOR MAGINNIS, coming in from Bracton with a great basket of washed linen for the priests at the cathedral, rode in the same trolley-car as the bishop. His red head blazed above a paper-covered novel. The bishop read the title. It was "Lady Violet; or, The Wonder of Kingswood Chase/ "Good day, Maginnis," said the bishop, af fably. "How are things in Bracton?" Maginnis raised his head, and his face blazed under his three days growth of sandy hair. He tried to hide "Lady Violet" beneath the linen in the basket. "I beg your lordship s pardon was it to me you were speakin ? Sure, things at Bracton are bad enough entirely. What with the 26 THE VALET OF THE PASTOR Dagos and the Tips, the Kerry people have no lives at all," said Maginnis, plaintively. "They led the old priest a hard life." "He was a Connaught man, sure, and " "I get off here, Maginnis," interrupted the bishop. "Good afternoon, Maginnis." THE bishop s secretary, Father Dudley, a tall, alert, black-eyed priest, raised his anxious face from a pile of papers on the desk as the bishop entered the big front room in the second story of the rectory. The bishop took off his frock-coat and with evident relief incased him self in a somewhat worn purple-bordered cas sock. "I Ve been paying a dinner-call that I could n t escape," he said, "and I tried my best to look the part of a cultivated prelate in good society. Do you know, I rather think that our separated brethren are pleased to see a glimpse of the purple at an afternoon tea? The wife 27 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS of the Baptist minister called me your lord ship twice; and a remarkably clever young woman asked me whether I liked novels with a heart interest or not. Stephen Blodgett was there, too like myself, a slave of duty; he looked like a young catechumen whose prin ciples had forced him to attend one of Nero s saturnalias. It s all very nice, but the next time I agree to dine out, I 11 see that there is no afternoon-tea attachment." "It s not for me to be making suggestions," said the secretary, who had spent his time in making suggestions ever since he had been in the seminary with the bishop, "but I think so ciety is no place for a priest, let alone a bishop." "Just hand me that breviary I m a little behindhand with my office," answered the bishop, with a twinkle in his eye. "I think Bracton might suit Blodgett." The secretary s face assumed a look as of a god who battles in vain against fate. 28 THE VALET OF THE PASTOR "Steve Blodgett s a convert, a clerical dude, though I don t deny that he s good; but he s not one of our own people. The Irish factions and the Italians at St. Kevin s will make short work of him. The Moldonovos and the O Keefes and the rest will eat him up." The bishop laughed. "I believe that you ve only one fault to find with the church : it is not all Irish and Kerry Irish at that." The secretary sighed. The bishop s persi flage always pained him. "To be sure," the bishop added, "he has no sense of humor; but that makes him all the more effective." "He s the kind of man that would stop to have his pants pressed before he d make a sick-call!" "Pants !" breathed the bishop, scornfully. Father Dudley, exasperated beyond endur ance, raised his hands in appeal to the ceiling behind the bishop s back. "It s well enough for an Episcopal minister 29 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS to part his hair in the middle," Father Dudley broke in, after a pause. "And what 11 he do among plain people, when he s so easily shocked ? He s only fit for St. Pancratius, where everybody wears kid gloves and you have to strain your eyes before you 11 find one of the poor. I dropped into his room the other day, and I found him looking at Tissot s pic tures with a view to his Good Friday sermon ! As if a rousing sermon ever came out of pic tures! And he recommended one of Canon Liddon s books. As if there was n t enough good theology in honest Latin ! So, to get the cobwebs out of his mind, I told him a story. T was that finished him. He J s no more fit to be over practical people than a child." "I trust," said the bishop, gravely opening his breviary, "that the story was a proper one." "Proper?" Father Dudley was almost speechless. "It was about my own cousin, Brian Cahill, who was frightfully jealous of 30 THE VALET OF THE PASTOR the good fortune of his sister-in-law, Mary Lawlor. And when she got rich through her praying to St. Joseph, she always said Brian was as mad as if he himself had lost all he had in the world. She had bought a fine house, and she was showing Brian through it. WrTen they came to the grand staircase that led up from the hall, she pointed out a fine stained- glass window. There was a heathen god there/ she said, but I had him taken out and St. Joseph put there, for t was St. Joseph gave me the house/ Now Brian was boiling over with jealousy/ said Father Dudley, warming with the story, "and he had his chance. Faith, Mary Lawlor, he said, "t was more than he ever did for his own family/ And, when I expected him to laugh, Steve Blodgett s eyes bulged out as if I d committed mortal sin." "A sense of humor sometimes causes us to be irreverent/ said the bishop, demurely. Again Father Dudley made a gesture of de- 3 1 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS spair at the ceiling. The frivolity of his su perior was more than he could bear. "Bracton will suit him," the bishop contin ued, when he had carefully marked a place in the breviary. "The factory hands will keep his sense of duty busy, and there s the monas tery that will console him." "It will," said Father Dudley, grimly. "Like all converts, he s half a monk. He 11 in troduce all the new foreign devotions before we know it. Not but what there are sensible people at Bracton that can be a help to him. There is Maginnis, who was worth his weight in gold to me as sexton when I was at St. Pan- cratius. He married Mary Ann Magee, the daughter of the widow that was such a pet of the sisters. Mrs. Magee has a laundry there, and is getting on well." "Ah, yes, I remember." The twinkle came back into the bishop s eyes. "And how is 32 THE VALET OF THE PASTOR Mary Ann? Sister Margaret always predict ed a bad end for her." "A bad end !" exclaimed Father Dudley, who was famous as a champion of every member of all the flocks he had shepherded in his time. "She s the mother of four children and a model housewife. What do nuns know about the world? If Steve Blodgett goes to Bracton and the plain people can stand him Mrs. Magee and Sexton Maginnis will be as towers of strength to him among the factions. Ma ginnis is a good-natured soul, but it s the moth er-in-law that has the brains of the family. You ought," he broke off suddenly, "to let the assistants go tramping out at night because an old woman has a toothache, instead of going out yourself, as you did last night. I don t want to suggest, but a bishop ought to know his place." "By all means I 11 put Father Blodgett in 33 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS the care of your Kerry people," said the bishop, evading the last remark. "He J s a saint and a gentleman which are, in my experience, often two different things and as he finds his stay in a parish made up of good society a martyr dom, I 11 give him a contrast." As Maginnis was about to leave the kitchen with his empty clothes-basket, he was called to Father Dudley s office for a little friendly but dignified conversation. "I 11 do my best," Maginnis said, as he stood reverentially, hat in hand. "I hear, father or at least, herself says she hears that Father Blodgett is as soft as a lamb. Herself says not that Mary Ann has n t sense, too, but the childer take all her time often that she do be pityin them converts: it takes them a long time to get on to the ways of us." "Well," said Father Dudley, looking bored, "the bishop never makes mistakes, but you and 34 THE VALET OF THE PASTOR your worthy mother-in-law must see that Fa ther Blodgett is not placed in a false position by those factions at Bracton. Mind that !" THE Rev. Stephen Wetherill Blodgett was pleased when he received the bishop s amiable letter appointing him to Bracton. His soul panted, as the thirsty hart panteth, for work among the lowly. The only son of exceedingly rich and affectionate parents, he had never seen, except during his limited training in the seminary, what Father Dudley called the "virile" side of life. At the seminary he had been much liked and respected for his honesty and simplicity, though he had been set down as a mystic. And there were those who predicted that his rising inflection, his fondness for all the refinements of devotion, and his extremely serious way of taking life unfitted him for the rude shocks of a priestly career in what until lately was called a "missionary" country. 35 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Erect, well groomed, with kind, steady brown eyes, and of a height that even over topped Father Dudley s, he was too slender and ascetic in appearance to be, as the rotund Father Dudley was, "a fine figure of a man," yet he was very attractive. Even Father Dud ley admitted this, with the comment, "but with his new Italian saints and his French fringes of devotion, you d think he was a supersti tious ritualist." So far Father Blodgett had been a great suc cess. The bishop made him do all the social duties which the older priests declined. He had been in great demand for fashionable mar riages when the bishop was away on his tours of confirmation. As the Countess de Madrino, nee Crowe, the heroine of an international mar riage, had remarked, he "composed so well with white orchids, orange-blossoms, and that sort of thing." The bishop, who hated secular 36 THE VALET OF THE PASTOR functions, worked him hard ; but so great was his respect for authority that he was pathetic- airy docile. Father Dudley treated him as a fragile but amazing flower, and never lost his temper with him but once, and that was when he referred to the eminently respectable red brick episcopal house as "his lordship s pal ace." Father Blodgett looked on Father Dud ley as one of his earthly afflictions. His red bandana, sprinkled with snuff, was particularly hard to bear. Bracton is not a pretty place. The factories have destroyed its horizon and the coal-barges have spoiled its river. It is one of those "ag gregations" that have grown up under new in dustrial conditions in the South. It is most unlike any of the typical Southern towns. There are no old families, there is very little poverty and none of it "gentle" there is not a single bed in which Lafayette slept, and there 37 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS are only two evening coats in the place; they belong to the imported waiters at the Bracton hotel. At the time when Father Blodgett assumed the cure of souls in Bracton, Messrs. Joseph O Keefe and Giuseppe Moldonovo were the leading capitalists, and they described them selves as New Yorkers. A monastery of Ger man monks had been for some years estab lished near the town, on land which they had made to bloom as the proverbial rose. Father Blodgett, in his humility, trembled for his own unworthiness when he entered the parish house of St. Kevin s. There was no housekeeper to welcome him, the lady in charge having retired when she heard that the new pastor was "particular." Mrs. Magee, ca pable, buxom, and smiling, was on hand, with a hot supper and her son-in-law, to assist in mak ing the way smooth. "It s me that s neglectin my work, Magin- 38 THE VALET OF THE PASTOR nis, and I know it," said Mrs. Magee, emphat ically, "but it s not only in Christian charity that the poor man should have a bit and a sup ; it s of them Dagos I m thinkin . If that Ma ria Moldonovo gets in here first, with her spa ghettis and macaronis and her outlandish ways, there 11 be an Eye-talian housekeeper here, sure as fate. We Ve got to crowd the crea tures out, Maginnis. I m not one for keepin up factions, or for nationality in religion; but I d hate to see that bold Isabella Moldonovo singin soprany in the choir and the O Keefe girl bossin the Holy Angels Sodality. The Dagos ought to keep in their place or be kept ; not that Moldonovo ain t rich enough to buy us all out," she added, with a sigh. Father Blodgett made no comments on his half-furnished house ; his mind was intent upon the unpacking of a few treasures, books and pictures. There was a pleasant patch of very young 39 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Bermuda grass in front of his house ; his front window looked out on a stunted fig-tree and a crape-myrtle. All the air seemed of a tender green shot with red-gold, so fine were the re flections of the budding trees, and soft shrub- sprays after the rain. The river, just begin ning to be contaminated by the factories, shone, in the late afternoon, with all the tints of a fire-opal. Father Blodgett hung his principal treasure a big Braun photograph of Murillo s St. An tony and the Divine Child on the east wall of his whitewashed chamber. The great arm chair a luxury he endured because his mother sent it was placed near the west window ; his prie-dieu stood at the foot of the enameled iron bedstead ; and plumes of early white lilacs in a thick white china pitcher, on a small table, waved and wafted perfume in the breeze from the window. "It s God s room, safe and simple," thought 40 THE VALET OF THE PASTOR the new pastor, as he stood on the one square of rag carpet near the bed and carefully watched the languid motions of Sexton Magin- nis as he unpacked the books. "This is to be my world;" and he added, as the six-o clock whistle blew, and groups of men, women, and children of all nationalities began to pour down the narrow mountain street, "these people shall be my people !" His heart was full of devout gratitude. Here was peace; and he was part of the un complicated lives of the poor. How different it all was from the artificial atmosphere of the rich or the half-rich ! Here there could be no social ambitions, no climbing for power, no rivalries. This spot and these honest folk would have delighted the heart of St. Francis. To guard these sheep, to guide them, to be part of the simple annals of the poor this were happiness enough ! THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "And who sent the flowers?" he asked smil ing. Maginnis laid down his hammer. He was deep in the last chapter of "Lady Violet/ which was running through his mind. A blush made its way under the growth of hair on his cheeks. He had put the lilacs there, but he was ashamed to confess to a bit of sen timent. "Herself" had rebuked him for bring ing in "them weeds." But he had to answer. "T was Lady t was Miss Violet Kings- wood," he said, blushing until his eyes seemed doubly brown by contrast with the pink. "Ah," said Father Blodgett, "it was most kind. Where does she live?" "Up there," said Maginnis, with a vague wave of his hand. "Most kind," murmured Father Blodgett; and indeed the sight of the delicate plumes was as stimulating as a grate fire in winter. "Is she one of my flock?" 42 THE VALET OF THE PASTOR "She s an old maid," said Maginnis, taking the crooked and the wide path on the impulse of the moment, "and I m sorry to say she s not wan of our own people." "She may see the light yet perhaps she 11 come to church. How came she to think of a stranger like me ?" "She do be takin a great interest in every thing," said Maginnis, putting a volume of Burton s "Anatomy" next to the "Mortal The ology" of the Stonyhurst series. "Here s my Flying Mercury quite safe," said Father Blodgett, as the expressman brought a long box into the room. Mrs. Ma- gee, full of curiosity, entered and helped to open it. "Put it over the chimney-piece, Maginnis there s a good man." The "Mercury" of John of Bologna, aerial, seemed ready to float over the white lilacs, im pelled by the motive of the Spring. 43 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Mrs. Magee turned her head away. "A haythen god stone cut by the Eye-tal- ians," she murmured. "It s this way the Da gos do be corruptin the innocent public. And he s put it where Father Dooner used to have St. Patrick." Maginnis viewed these symp toms with alarm. "It won t do, Maginnis, it won t do," she whispered. "Of course his rev erence will not be after listenin to a simple man, but you can talk to one of the brothers at the monastery. They d not countenance this, though they are Dutch." It was after nine o clock when a kind of com fort had made itself evident in Father Blod- gett s house. Maginnis asked if there was anything else to do, and Father Blodgett was filled with compunction. He had walked through the unfinished church, marked with pleasure the possibilities of the long garden at its back, and forgotten Maginnis. "I m sorry, my good man," he said; "your 44 THE VALET OF THE PASTOR people are probably waiting for you at home." "They don t miss me much," said Maginnis, "Mary Ann s content enough, with the childer and a novel, and Herself doesn t leave me much to do." "How would you like to look after me? When you were sexton for Father Dudley you used to be able to do everything, I hear. Fa ther Dudley told me I d find you useful be cause you could press trousers." Father Dud ley had maliciously said "pants," but Father Blodgett could not bring himself to that. "But I m sure you could be useful in many other ways. I 11 need you to serve my mass, and I d rather have you about the house than a woman, for some women are such gossips." "Herself could send in your breakfast, and I m sure she d be glad to see me doing the rest for your reverence," answered Maginnis. "Very well. And," added Father Blodgett, with a certain timidity, "if you hear any criti- 45 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS cisms of me that you can t help hearing that you can t help hearing, mind ! I wish you d tell me. If people should say pleasant things, I don t want to hear them. That s mere gos sip. And don t be afraid to tell me the truth, for I m not likely to hear it any other way. The words of the honest and the simple are the best for a priest to hear. I am not likely to come in intimate contact with the folk here, beyond my sacred duties." " T was herself said he was no mixer," thought Maginnis, respectfully nodding. "There s that Miss Kingswood you spoke about," went on the priest. "She may be a close observer, and one very often discovers one s defects from our separated brethren. And if, without a breach of confidence, you could tell me if she should see any mistakes of mine, it might do good. Perhaps there s somebody else." Father Blodgett paused expectantly. THE VALET OF THE PASTOR "Sure, there s Brother Gamborious, at the monastery/ said Maginnis, discovering by in spiration another mask for the opinion of Mrs. Magee. "He s what they call a Passionate monk, I think." "Thank you." And Maginnis, properly tipped, was left free to return to the bosom of his family. "!T ? s not the likes of me that would presume to give his reverence advice," remarked Mrs. Magee, "but I can see that he needs it and I m satisfied you 11 soon find a way, Maginnis, of showin him where the Dagos and them purse-proud O Keefes belong." Maginnis did not reply. He felt helpless. He knew that he had invented ways of convey ing the opinions of "herself" to Father Blod- gett. At the same time he threw the blame of these ways on circumstances. Miss Violet Kingswood and Brother Gamborious had 47 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS sprung full-armed from his mouth, as it were. When Mary Ann called him to hold the young est baby while she read aloud from "Lady Violet/ 7 he resolved to get out of the decep tion if he could. Maginnis made himself so useful that the priest understood now what Father Dudley meant when he had recommended the sexton as his "valet." Mrs. Magee sent in the meals regularly, and the pastor, having arranged matters among his flock with that mixture of shyness and dignity that characterized him, thought that things were going too well. Here was a man to emulate St. Laurence but where was the gridiron? He tried to find it. "You have n t heard any complaints, have you, Maginnis?" Maginnis, reddening as usual, bent his whole attention on the hat he was brushing. "Brother Gamborious has just been after sayin that if you Ve got a pagan god on your THE VALET OF THE PASTOR mantelpiece, t is a bad example for them that do be dependin on you to lead them to serve the Creator in this world and be happy forever in the next." "Did he say that?" "Her his very words, your reverence. The Lord forgive herself for puttin them in my head," he added, aside. Father Blodgett hesitated. "Perhaps your brother is right," he said at last, with a sigh. "He knows these folk better than I do. Put the Mercury in the closet, Ma- ginnis that is it ! carefully, in the bottom of the closet." Maginnis rather sheepishly obeyed him. "And Miss Violet Kingswood do be after findin great fault with your visits to the Eye- talians. She says it excites jealousy." "But I must visit these people ; they Ve been neglected long enough," returned Father Blod gett, somewhat sharply. 49 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS^ Maginnis s eyes reproached him. "Go on." He invited the thorn. "She says she thinks it a shame that the people that are buildin up the country and supportin the church should be made to take back seats for the Dagos." "She surely couldn t have " "I could n t repeat her exact words, but them was her sentiments; she spoke more refined- like," replied Maginnis, throwing himself into the situation. "It is strange for a non-Catholic to take such an interest in my people," said Father Blodgett, divided between gratitude and vexation. "I m sure she could n t have meant just what you say. I don t care to make acquaintances, but perhaps it is my duty to see her. Where does she live ?" "Oh," exclaimed Maginnis, thrown off his balance, "she does n t live in Bracton now ; she comes down every day by the B. and O. She s So THE VALET OF THE PASTOR a lady of wealth, and she likes railways and visitin the nagurs." Maginnis was excited. He shuddered for a moment, but he had to go on. "And, as it s my duty, I 11 have to say that Brother Gamborious has been cut to the ha-art that there s so much drinkin goin on in this house." Maginnis did not raise his eyes, but went on counting Father Blodgett s collars. "And I, savin his presence, I told him he was wrong. It s a small bottle of wine only his reverence has/ says I. No mat ter/ says the brother; it will be hard to keep up a temperance society with them doin s goin on/ " Father Blodgett frowned. "It is the Chianti Mr. Moldonovo has been kind enough to send me. I think that it is only a proper thing to use it; but if " "Miss Violet Kingswood says that a little good whisky three or four times a day Si THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS would n t be so bad; but for the likes of you to be destroyin your insides with " "A lady say that!" exclaimed Father Blod- gett, in amazement. "Maginnis, you ve made a mistake." "Faith, I have/ returned Maginnis, readily. "Now I come to think of it, twas Brother Gamborious said it. Maginnis, says he, I m anxious for the souls of the circular clergy and the poor people they govern, and it s my belief, at present speakin , that Father Blodgett is weakenin his influence by drinkin Eye-talian trash with his meals. Whisky, he says, says he, is drink for a strong man, but red vinegar out of a wicker basket is drink for neither man nor beast. Father Blodgett was silent for a moment. "Total abstinence is best for a priest, after all. I suppose that is what Brother Gam borious meant. I must break my rule and 52 THE VALET OF THE PASTOR call at the monastery to make his acquaint ance." "You 11 not see him," said Maginnis, promptly. "He s that humble that he spends all his time in the cupola carvin wooden fig ures." "A real medieval friar," said Father Blod- gett, brightening. "It s a great privilege to hear from him. If I seem somewhat abrupt, don t imagine, Maginnis, that I m ungrateful to you or those good people; but I trust that they don t speak in this way to others." "They speak only to me, your reverence, and they d give a good tongue-lashin to anybody that would say a word against you," asserted Maginnis, emphatically. "Indeed, it s me that would n t stand it." "You re a good, simple man," Father Blod- gett said, much moved; "and," he added, "if during all our lives we could get kind people to 53 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS tell us exactly what criticisms our well-inten tioned friends were making of us, we d keep more bravely toward the road to perfection/ 7 "Your reverence never said a truer wurrud," said Maginnis, scrubbing a soapdish with en ergy. FATHER BLODGETT was exact in his duties; he spoke little with his grown-up parishioners, but all the children loved him. He seemed to have no sense of humor when with older people, but with children his sense of fun was great. He understood them, he never laughed at them, and their joys and sorrows were as open pages to him. Strange to say, as yet Miss Violet Kingswood and the pious Brother Gamborious had no fault to find with his conduct to the children. And when Father Dudley surprised by the unusual quiet that reigned at Bracton the Bractonians having by their racial quar rels almost driven their old pastor into the mo- 54 THE VALET OF THE PASTOR nastic life asked Maginnis about the new pas tor, the answer was evasive : "He s not bad for a man born in this coun try, and a convert at that ; but he do be needin a deal of lookin after." Father Dudley smiled. In spite of the bish op s belief in Father Blodgett s success, a kid- glove man would never do. Father Blodgett s course, however, was not entirely pleasing to Miss Kingswood or Broth er Gamborious, though they were silent for fear that the pastor might insist on hunting them up. But when the Society of St. Rita formerly the Revolutionary Association of Garibaldi announced a banquet in the room over the post-office, and Father Blodgett had agreed to address the members in his best Tus can, they spoke. It was only after a week s nagging from "herself" that Maginnis was forced to quote them. "It s not for the likes of me to do much talk- 55 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS in ," he said as he brought in the priest s coffee on the morning before the banquet, "but Miss Violet is much hurt at the way you re actin toward the Dagos." "Please speak more respectfully; I will not have any of my people misnamed, Maginnis." "Holy Moses!" muttered Maginnis, under his breath, "he 11 begin by taking up the nagurs next. Miss Violet," he went on aloud, "says, says she, If he goes on as he does with the furrigners, he 11 be encouragin the nagurs next, and we 11 have missy-genation among us. Is n t, she says, with tears in her eyes, isn t there enough Christian saints but that Father Blodgett should be puttin up a big fig ure of a Da Eye-talian saint, that nobody ever heard of, on a side altar? It will be the ruin of the church, says she; I can see with my mind s eye mobs of Eye-talians pray in to the queer saints and not one payin , says she." "Does she know," asked Father Blodgett, 56 THE VALET OF THE PASTOR severely, "that these poor Italians love St. Rita as the servant of the Lord, and that on the very day that statue went up, their hideous, atheis tical banners went down? Does she know that?" "I did n t think your reverence would be an gry with a poor boy that s only doin what you asked him to do. It s little I like to be gos- sipin ." "Perhaps I have done wrong to bother you about this matter. I need more humility or I should n t find fault with your simplicity. What does this Miss Kingswood look like?" "She s a short lady, with a pink parasol and a blue fan." "I think I saw her yesterday at the post-of fice; and if I meet her again I 11 speak to her." "Did she wear men s high boots ?" demanded Maginnis, in alarm, "and did she carry a cane?" "No; certainly not." 57 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Twas not Miss Violet, then/ cried Ma- ginnis, relieved. "Miss Violet s concentric- like." "Eccentric? I should think so. She is un reasonable, too. The Italians are doing their best." "They re no good/ exclaimed Maginnis, unguardedly. "They re no more to be trust ed than the Dutch. At least, them were the very words of Brother Gamborious." "I thought Brother Gamborious was a Ger man himself," said Father Blodgett, coldly. There was a pause. "It was the Dutch he mentioned. Not that he s all for his own people, like the Eye-tal- ians and the Tips." Father Blodgett s brow clouded. He propped a catalogue of a stained-glass window factory against the sugar-bowl. Maginnis waited in trepidation. The quiet was omi nous. 58 THE VALET OF THE PASTOR "I ve been unreasonable, too. I asked you for these opinions, and yet I m growing irri tated because you give them to me in your own language. I believe I m as illogical as some of the higher critics of the Bible," he added, laughing to himself. "You may take my win ter overcoat/ "Thank you/ answered Maginnis humbly. "I 11 never say a word again." "But you must; and I shall get accustomed to unpleasant things. I can t be angry with an honest man." Maginnis winced, but the grasp of "herself" was strong upon him. "Brother Gamborious says that he wonders why your reverence went to the party the other night at the O Keefes , with their fine silver and china and a pianny, and Rosalia O Keefe with her dress half off her shoulders. It s the ha-ard-workin poor, he says, says he, that his reverence ought to be visitin . " 59 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Brother Gamborious ?" "Sure, I Ve mixed em up. T was Miss Violet that said it." "Miss Violet had better" Father Blodgett compressed his lips. "But go on." " "T is not good for the clergy to be visitin the rich/ says she, and I vow to Heaven that I hope the people won t be noticin the partial ity that his reverence shows to the O Keefe twins. " Father Blodgett s frown made Maginnis stop. The priest s eyes were fixed in the space outside the east window. "There is a woman with a pink parasol go ing into the B. and O. station. It is doubtless your Miss Kingswood. Give me my hat; I 11 go and speak with her." "Holy Moses !" breathed Maginnis, "his rev erence will think I m a liar if he does. No, no. Miss Kingswood left for New York for good last night. She s married a nagur." 60 "Tell Mrs. Magee, with my compliments, to keep you there" THE VALET OF THE PASTOR "And Brother Gamborious ?" said Father Blodgett, slowly. "I must see him at once, then." "You can t!" shrieked Maginnis, losing his presence of mind. "He died this mornin with dropsy of the ha-art and, besides, he can t speak English." , Father Blodgett gazed long at Maginnis, whose red hair paled in contrast with his face. "You may go home and tell Mrs. Magee, with my compliments, to keep you there." "I only hope," spoke Maginnis, putting his head in at the door, "that your reverence won t think I m a liar." "Bad cess to herself for leadin me into it," he muttered on his way to the laundry. "If I get the whole of the stations for it as a penance t will be little enough ; but what will herself say? Sure the Dagos and the O Keefes are on top." 63 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "I SEE with pleasure/ said the bishop, reread ing a letter, "that Father Blodgett has united the factions at Bracton. Messrs. Moldonovo and O Keefe have subscribed each a thousand dollars for the completion of the church, and the societies of St. Patrick and St. Rita are to have a joint banquet on the Fourth of July." "It s a strange world," responded Father Dudley, sadly; "and nobody s gladder than I that you were right this time, bishop." 64 Ill THE WARNING MAGINNIS had, as usual, left the contents of his basket of washed linen at the bishop s house. He loi tered on his way to the Bracton trolley-line with the secret hope that he should meet Fa ther Dudley, who was about to return from his annual vacation. He had learned from the housekeeper that Father Blodgett was expected to dinner and that Father Dudley might arrive at any moment. The former he desired to avoid; the latter he wished, above all, to see. It would be a grievous thing for him to go back to Bracton without having had a talk with the bishop s secretary. Maginnis was devoted to clerical society, and since his un- 65 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS pleasantness with his own pastor, who had too ardently desired to meet some friends of his, he had been deprived of it. "Sexton" was with him now merely a courtesy title; he was, it is true, permitted to take up the collection at the early masses, but at the grand mass Mr. Joseph O Keefe or Mr. Giuseppe Moldonovo usually performed that duty. He felt deeply the loss of self-respect and dignity. He had descended in the social scale. There was balm, however, in the continuous interest which Father Dud ley took in the affairs of his family. His mother-in-law, Mrs. Magee, who had become more and more important as she grew stouter and prosperous, had now no source of informa tion as to the inner workings of the parish of St. Kevin s. The pastor had heartlessly en gaged an ancient negress as cook, and her son, Bucephalus Harrison, blacked his boots and did many things which the cook left undone. Mrs. Magee expected Maginnis to bring home 66 THE WARNING to Bracton the ecclesiastical information for which her soul sighed, and Maginnis was afraid to return without such scraps as he could gather from Father Dudley s questions rather than from his answers. Maginnis stood on the corner, in the shade of a glistening mag nolia. He was ready to flee if Father Blodgett should appear, or to go forward if the sympa thetic secretary should descend from a car. He set his empty basket against the iron rail ing of the churchyard and waited. It had just struck eleven o clock, and he was beginning to be afraid that Father Dudley would not arrive on the morning train. "Sure, if I don t see his reverence," Magin nis thought, as he pushed back his straw hat to let the draft at the corner smooth his perplexed brow, "Herself will be as cross as two sticks. Sure, t is him that s the kind man. T is him that s the holy soggarth. T is him that un derstands us poor people, and don t expect us THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS to be like black Protestants, always thinkin of human respect. He s not a man to blame you for takin a glass or two on a holiday, and you would n t have to run behind a dure with your can of beer if you met him, as you would from some others." And Maginnis sighed as he thought of the new pastor at Bracton. "Why, sure, I remember when Father Dudley came down on me dark as night, because Father Blodgett had tould him that I was the biggest liar in America ; and I had n t a thing to say, except that I wasn t understood, and twas him that knew what was in my own mind. The Anglo-Saxon never understands, says he; but you must n t let your imagination run away with you. T is a Celtic fault, says he, and colder climes, says he, are jarred by it. But he never said I lied; to hear Father Blodgett s words, you d think I d committed a mortal sin and me only tellin him things for his own good." 68 THE WARNING Maginnis s eyes glowed suddenly, and a wide grin showed his white teeth. A car had stopped, and from it descended Father Dudley, tall, thin, and erect as usual, with a touch of sunburn on his cheeks. Maginnis ran forward and seized his bag. Father Dudley smiled be- nignantly. "1 11 just leave my basket here, and go home with you and unpack," Maginnis said. "And you re well, sir?" "Oh, I have to be well, Maginnis, in spite of the anxiety I have about the bishop whenever I go away. I heard there s smallpox in the parish, and so I came back at once. He s ca pable of catching it the moment I m out of the way, instead of sending an assistant. But how are things in Bracton?" Maginnis shook his head and sighed. "St. Rita s base-ball club, made up of the Dagos, knocked the Holy Angels to smither eens last Saturday, and they nearly all the sons THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS of Kerry boys; but All the Saints paid them back on Monday. His reverence won t let the Holy Angels Sodality have a progressive eu chre; he says it will lead to gamblin ." "I don t know where Steve Blodgett s rigor ism will end," murmured Father Dudley, the wrinkles beginning to show again under his eyes ; "but it s not my business. Father Blodgett s nephew," he said aloud, "is coming down for a week or two at Bracton, I hear from the bishop s house. He s not one of our own people, and I hope everything will be done to show him that faith and good morals are inseparable. By the way, Maginnis," broke off Father Dudley, with what he considered ex quisite art, "are there many attractive young girls about St. Kevin s?" Maginnis was in the act of ringing the bell ; he purposely omitted to answer, for fear Fa ther Dudley might not invite him up-stairs. "I 11 carry your bag," he said with alacrity, 70 THE WARNING "and you 11 need a good brushin before you go down to dinner." "Thank you, Maginnis," answered Father Dudley, graciously. "When a young man is so anxious to visit his uncle in a dull town, there s always a female in the case," he thought. Maginnis opened the priest s closely packed bag before he answered the question. It was not repeated; Father Dudley, as a diplomatist, felt that the underscoring of words was not real art. "Indeed, father," said Maginnis, rejoiced that he had something to build on for the edi fication of Herself, "there s a great crowd of nice, well-behaved young women in the parish ; but for bold, brazen good looks, as Herself, as Mrs. Magee, says, there s Rosalia O Keefe, the daughter of that dirty and purse-proud Tipperary man, and Isabella Moldonovo sure, her name tells what she is." 71 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Mr. O Keefe is an eminently respectable man, and his new soap-works are doing much for the town." Maginnis tried to snort respectfully. "Father Blodgett s nephew is, I understand, an agnostic, and I should be sorry to hear of a mixed marriage of that sort in St. Kevin s. A bad example spreads. Oh, there s the din ner-bell, Maginnis! Go into the kitchen and get something to eat, and here " A dollar changed hands. Maginnis, in haste, ran through the kitchen to find his basket and depart on the first car. There would be no doubt of Herself s good humor now. Father Dudley reverently paused for a mo ment as the angelus rang, and then descended to the dining-room with such an air of "recol lection" that the Rev. Stephen Blodgett, who was waiting on the bishop s right in the dining- room, was moved to humble admiration. 72 THE WARNING "Delighted to see you back," said the bishop, as the maid served a soup so lukewarm that Father Dudley surmised the need of a tighter hand in the household. "I suppose you have been so much in the gay world that you 11 scorn a dinner in the middle of the day. You 11 find it hard to dine before eight o clock," said the bishop, amiably; "and if I d been sure of your coming, I d have ordered vol-au-vents, at least." "My feet have never trod the path of lux ury," said Father Dudley, frowning at the sec ond spoonful of soup. " Dalliance, " put in the bishop, gravely " primrose path of dalliance is better. Never lose a chance to quote Shakspere." "If I have any time, I prefer to give it to St. Thomas, bishop," answered Father Dudley, gloomily. "In these days of rash scientific speculation, when religion and the principles of secular knowledge need to be constantly united, 73 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS the Summa becomes more and more the basis of serious reflection for the man who would meet practically the evils of the day." Father Blodgett, unmindful of certain lumps of fat in the soup, was listening with unfeigned and self-reproachful interest, when the door bell rang, and a card was brought to the bishop. " Mr. Guy Wetherill, " he read. "Your nephew, Father Blodgett?" he asked, with a smile. "Yes, your lordship; I asked him to meet me here. He has been overworked, poor boy! They have given him his Ph.D at the univer sity at Schleswigstein, and he s coming to Bracton with me for a week or two of pastoral life." "Glad of it," said the bishop, heartily. "If we don t have young people about us, we can t keep young. Put a plate next to Father Blodgett, Mary, and tell Mr. Wetherill to come in." 74 THE WARNING "He has probably lunched," said Father Dudley, politely. "Well, he hasn t dined," said the bishop, "and boys of his age can always eat. Mary, bring up a bottle of the Riorga. We can t of fer American claret to a Ph.D. in chemistry." Mr. Guy Wetherill entered, with a little touch of engaging awkwardness and an angu larity of attitude assumed to correct it. He clicked his heels after the German man ner when he bowed, and gazed, with eyes softly intelligent, through a pair of gold-rimmed spec tacles at the bishop. He was spare, with plenty of muscle and a softly tinted complex ion, set off by a pointed blond beard. The bishop liked his eyes, and concluded that his air of angular priggishness was acquired. "Glad to see you, Mr. Wetherill. You haven t lunched. That doesn t matter. Roast beef can be eaten at any time. Just back from Germany?" 75 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Yes," Wetherill was about to say "sir," but hesitated. "I finished there; that is, I mean I Ve been taught to begin there." "And may I inquire to what study you have devoted yourself?" asked Father Dudley. "Oh, I worked with Schweinweil in chemis try, took physics with Grimstow, psychology with Smicht, and did some comparative re ligion under Von Schleicher. My thesis I beg pardon?" "I suppose that the basis of your studies in comparative religion was a negation of Chris tian revelation," returned Father Dudley. Father Blodgett turned red. The bishop s secretary took out his bandana, wiped his fore head, and waited for a reply. The bishop raised his napkin to his lips, and his eyes twinkled. "Oh, I can t say that I went deep. I just looked into things a little under Von Schleicher who is a jolly little chap. We didn t deny 76 THE WARNING anything; we just examined the idea of immor tality as expressed in various tribe-myths/ " "Tribe-myths !" murmured Father Dudley, sarcastically. "St. Kevin s has n t acquired electric lights yet?" asked the bishop of the unhappy Father Blodgett, knowing well that he could not create a diversion, but not wishing to appear cruel. "I presume," continued the secretary before Father Blodgett could open his lips, "that your Von Schleicher did not postulate a creative force, that he did not once consider the Power that tinges the rose and makes the dewdrops sparkle in May on the same flower." "Certainly he did, sir," said young Wether- ill, gazing through his glasses in mild surprise. "No scientific man fails to postulate if you like the word a creative force now." "You amaze me," said Father Dudley, for getting his beef in the joy of battle. "Herbert Spencer Huxley " 77 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Oh, nobody bothers about Spencer s philo sophical guesses at present," said the angular Wetherill, squaring his elbows to cut his beef. "He s out. Von Schleicher s a better man." Father Dudley felt as if his tower of strength had fallen. If Spencer were "out" of it, what would become of that long series of sermons, carefully type-written, in which that agnostic philosopher had been so carefully refuted? "You do not mean to say that Spencer, with all his knowledge and force of argument, il logical as it is, has been set aside by a group of superficial Germans?" "Father Dudley," said the bishop, looking demurely at his plate, "you will not, I beg, go so far as to eulogize Spencer at this table." Father Dudley was speechless. "I am glad, my dear Mr. Wetherill," the bishop added, looking at the young doctor with that unfeigned interest that made him a power 78 THE WARNING with youth, "that Von Schleicher has not made you an infidel." "Oh, -no," answered Wetherill, cheerfully; "I am sure that I could n t be influenced by any body. The only thing I care for in tlie world is the seeking for truth; research is the only work in life. All truth is sacred. I am at work on a suggestion as to the drying of al cohol." "I wish all alcohol could be dried out of the world," said Father Blodgett, fervently. "If you knew the factory hands at Br acton, you d " "Oh, I was only speaking in a scientific way, uncle," said Wetherill, loftily; "that is, I am not trying for practical results. But as to re ligion, I think it s all a matter of psychology. I followed a little of Otto-Sommerschein s work psychological political economics and I think that s the truth. If you re psycholog- 79 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS ically medieval, like you, uncle, you 11 like the medieval point of view ; but a chap ought to be decently tolerant, you know." The bishop looked gravely at the pleasant, pink-tinted face before him, with its odd touch of pedantry and over-training. "You Ve never suffered much, my dear boy," he said gently. Wetherill looked puzzled. "I don t think that would ever make me be lieve in religion. The idea of a personal God is out of my line. It s gone out." "With Spencer," murmured the bishop. "And I J m sure nothing could change my views. I m perfectly open to all impressions that will stand the test of scientific analysis," added Wetherill, with airy conviction. "What you call the soul I can t see, and I " "Have you read St. Thomas?" demanded Father Dudley, sternly. " Et haec est dem- onstratio Aristoteles. Relinquitur J 80 THE WARNING "Oh, I know what you are going to say. But I can see the beating of a sheep s heart; and the combination of any gases that will com bine is more important than all metaphysical speculations. I think that the carriage has come for my uncle, sir ; I 11 run out and tell the man to wait." And Wetherill rose as lightly as if he had never followed the work of Otto-Sommer- schein. "A nice boy/ said the bishop; "he has a good face." "What morals do you think he can have with such devilish sentiments?" demanded Father Dudley. He had forgotten Father Blod- gett. "I m sure that my nephew is a gentleman ; the Wetherills have always cultivated sound morality," said Father Blodgett, flushing. "Guy s people have always been decent, and I consider that the purity of my ancestors was a 81 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS factor in securing me the grace of conversion. The Wetherills " "Gentlemen!" said Father Dudley, bringing his fist down on the table. "Morality! Look at your Four Hundred !" Father Blodgett seemed utterly disgusted, and then very unhappy. "Nonsense!" said the bishop, peeling a peach. "You take the boy too seriously. He s speaking the cant of his college. I m sorry that he is, of course ; but you 11 find that if he marries the right woman she 11 do more than even St. Thomas in the way of bringing him to a rational view of life." "I trust that he will not marry a dissenter," said Father Blodgett, anxiously, "or anybody beneath his rank socially." "I reckon that a fine, honest girl with the faith, but no social frills about her, would n t be good enough for him," exclaimed Father Dudley, exasperated beyond endurance. "She 82 THE WARNING would n t be good enough, though she might save the young scoffer s soul. Excuse me, Steve Blodgett, but you re no better than a Modernist." There was silence. Father Blodgett s lips moved. "An honest, hard-working Irish girl would n t be good enough for him, unless she was of his class," repeated Father Dudley. "It s the old aristocracy that brought about the French Revolution coming back in this land of the free." Father Blodgett s face reddened; his lips moved silently. "And it s this infidel you are taking into the innocent, simple-minded congregation at St. Kevin s. I must finish a letter, bishop, and I Ve no patience." And the secretary left, car rying, as was his wont, his cigar and coffee- cup with him. "He has a heart of gold," said the bishop, 83 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS looking after him. "Don t argue with this nephew of yours, Blodgett." "I can only pray/ said Father Blodgett "only pray, your lordship. I am glad that I have strength enough not to resent Father Dudley s words/ "And if he should meet a nice girl of pro nounced Christian belief, don t worry about her pedigree. He s some money of his own ?" "He s well off in the things of this world," said Father Blodgett, with a sigh. "But if he should happen to marry a Catholic? Your lordship doesn t approve of mixed mar riages ?" "You know my opinion," said the bishop, with dignity. "As a rule, no; but if the party of the second part happens to be a real woman, the party of the first part will soon have to be lieve in the Apostles Creed." Father Blodgett seemed puzzled. "Thank you, my lord," he said meekly. THE WARNING The bishop stirred his coffee and looked at his guest intently. Father Blodgett had for gotten the bishop; he was gazing at the copy of Da Vinci s "Last Supper" on the wall. " Blessed are the pure in heart/ " the bishop thought. "Here comes your nephew/ he said aloud. "Let us go up to my rooms and smoke." "I am glad/ thought the secretary as, at the sound of footsteps, he shut the door of his room, "that I warned Maginnis before this ravening wolf of an infidel goes among the good people of St. Kevin s. He 11 never see the light, in spite of his uncle. Oh, the dog matism of science ! His conversion is no more likely than my perversion." And he flung himself at the type-writing machine with the nervous energy of a man who longed to set the world right. IN the meantime Father Blodgett and his 85 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS nephew drove over the road, between locust- and walnut-trees, magnolias and crape-myrtles, in reddish-purple bloom, toward Bracton. Wetherill talked about his dead mother, and Father Blodgett s heart yearned over his little sister s boy. Neither Maginnis nor his wife nor Herself ever met the O Keefes, except at church, or at some of the functions connected with the church. There had been a time when matters were different, but since the head of the O Keefes had become mayor of Bracton, prin cipally through the "Dago" vote, as Mrs. Ma- gee regretfully remarked, neither she nor any of her "belongings" darkened the door of the "creature" who had alienated the regards of a number of his compatriots by growing richer and richer every day in company with Giu seppe Moldonovo. The new soap-factory, needing only more expert direction to be thor oughly successful, had added to the dislike of 86 THE WARNING the Kerry people for the Italo-Tipperary com bination. "It s a Dago trust," Herself said, and Sex ton Maginnis repeated it. Since the building of the new house by the river and the political elevation of her hus band, Mrs. O Keefe was obliged to appear in public incased in a jet-decorated black silk gown, from which her generous proportions seemed only too willing to escape, especially when she sighed over the old days when the "childer" were all little. She would have liked a little gossip among the delightful soapy smells of Mrs. Magee s laundry or even in her own parlor ; but, though she was willing to de scend, Herself could not be persuaded to as cend. "I know me place," Herself was wont to say, with an accent which showed that it was a very exalted one. If, however, Mrs. Magee was ever tempted THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS to act against her principles, it was when Maginnis came home with the news that Fa ther Blodgett s nephew was to visit Bracton. In the primitive code of Mrs. Magee a young man in Bracton meant that there would be serious attentions and perhaps intentions on his part, and logically all the possible objects of his probable advances were reviewed by her. As society existed, there were only two young and unengaged women whom the priest s nephew would have a right to meet Rosalia O Keefe, who had been away at a convent school for a year, and Isabella Moldonovo, who had spent six months in Italy. Although Maginnis tried to be truthful when he was not frightened, he had somewhat embroidered Fa ther Dudley s few words with little flowers of his own. "It s a black infidel that s comin to catch the stuck-up O Keefe girl, if he can. Father Dudley warned me." 88 THE WARNING "Serves her right, the bold thing !" said Her self, giving Maginnis his second cup of coffee, while his wife languidly changed the twins from right to left, for one was bigger than the other, and rivited her attention on "The Hidden Hand/ which was propped up on the table before her. "Is he rich, the black infidel?" "Drippin* with diamonds," promptly an swered Maginnis, with his eyes on Herself. "Then you 11 go down to-night and warn the mother," said Mrs. Magee, with compressed lips. Maginnis turned a painful red. He had hoped for an uninterrupted evening with Mary Ann and the delectable "Hidden Hand," whose adventures he had discovered on a stand de voted to second-hand books; but Herself had spoken. Rosalia O Keefe was seated on the cherry- covered stool in front of the upright piano in THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS the twilight, trying "Violets" in a very rich, soft voice. She had learned a little German at the convent, when her father had an eye on the coming Hanoverian vote, and she was ut tering the words with a strange pronunciation. The pink light from a shaded lamp on the piano showed a young woman of about twenty- two, attired in a white frock which accentuated all her best points. She was a brunette as to the color of her skin ; her hair, worn after the pompadour manner, was reddish and very abundant; and, in the dim light, she gave the impression of strength and grace. She was in a happy mood, for she and Isabella Moldonovo were, on the morrow, to start for the annual August trip to Atlantic City, where Isabella s Genoese godmother kept a hotel. The pros pect was alluring, and all her boxes were packed. Mrs. O Keefe, stout and sighing fre quently, sat in the shade near a window. Her tight silk bodice inconvenienced her, but she 90 THE WARNING liked to feel the curtain against her face; she knew that it was real Limerick lace. The door-bell tinkled, and Rosalia rose to welcome Maginnis. Mrs. O Keefe was pleased. Maginnis was evidently abashed by the splendor of Rosalia. He held fast to his hat, but took a chair. There was some polite conversation, during which Rosalia softly played the accompaniment of "Violets." "Do she be hearin us?" Maginnis asked at last, edging nearer to Mrs. O Keefe; he could stand the strain of beating about the bush no longer. "Who? Rose? Oh, I don t think she s lis tening." "It J s about her I want to talk," said Magin nis, in a weird whisper; "and if I was a ban shee, I could n t be after bringin a more sol emn message." Mrs. O Keefe s breath seemed to stop. "A warning?" 91 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAG1NNIS The accompaniment ceased, too. "And Herself said t was to you alone/ "Rose," said Mrs. O Keefe, in a tremulous voice, for Maginnis s tone gave the impression that he had come direct from another world. "Rose, please go into the log-ya." Mrs. O Keefe had endeavored to master, under her daughter s tuition, the name of the proudest apartment of the new house, and she hoped to placate her by using it. "I will not go into the loggia, mama/ an swered Rosalia, calmly. "If Mr. Maginnis is going to talk about me, I 11 stay where I am." Rosalia stood up as a tower of ivory. Her mother sighed deeply; Maginnis dropped his hat. "Go on !" said Rosalia, calmly standing. "It s not me that would be after meddlin ," said Maginnis, in a tone so very human that Mrs. O Keefe gained courage, "but there s a young boy, a black infidel, comin down here to 92 THE WARNING visit the priest, and Herself is afraid that your daughter might be taken in by him. He s a deludher and no mistake, with a soul as black as the ace of spades, I m told; and Herself says that, as he s much above the O Keefes in their state of life, Rose here might set her cap, and" "I understand it all," said Rosalia. "Mama, if papa were here, I should not be so insulted. I will not go to Atlantic City; I will wait and face this man, and show these malicious per sons that I am not afraid of anybody." She left the room without looking at the visitor. There was silence, broken only by a sigh or two. "Heaven knows I Ve done my best," said Maginnis, bewildered. "I don t know, I don t know. Rosalia s quick-tempered," said Mrs. O Keefe. "She rules the house. But how are the twins, Maginnis ?" 93 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS GUY WETHERILL adapted himself to the ways of the priest s house, which were simple and frugal ways. He fished, used his kodak, and visited the factories. On the Sunday follow ing his coming to Bracton his uncle had asked him to go to mass. "Oh, no," he said, "thank you. I studied the psychological phenomena of your services at Naples, when Von Schleicher was there with me in his sabbatical year." Father Blodgett said nothing; he only prayed the longer after mass that day. Had he been right in asking the boy down to this crude little town? To be sure, his nephew needed rest and quiet and safety from intel lectual pressure; but, for the sake of his soul, should he not have been placed where the cere monies of the church were performed magnifi cently and where the philosophy of religion could be so viewed as to affect his intellect? And then there were no persons of Guy s own 94 THE WARNING class in Bracton who could give a social bloom to faith. For the first time he regretted that there was n t an evening coat in the town. The honest vulgarity of the people, whom he loved spiritually, would prejudice the boy against the church, he feared. The Wetherills Guy was the grandson of that famous old minister to England for whom he himself had been named had always been ultra-refined. Father Blodgett, in his doubt, could only pray, and fear that he himself was too much of the world. Guy, his nerves in good condition now, looked for companionship. The study of the factories began to bore him, though O Keefe had taken a liking to him, and he had helped that red-haired, masterful Tipperary man with some valuable chemical advice. O Keefe wanted to ask Wetherill to tea, but Rosalia, who had let Isabella Moldonovo go down to the sea alone, would not hear of it, and she 95 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS would give no reason. This condition was soon known at the Olympia Laundry. " J T was an inspiration/ said Mrs. Magee, proudly ; "the girl s saved from the wiles of the deludher !" Mary Ann, who had just turned the last page of "The Hidden Hand/ smiled; she remem bered a time when she wore a hat with blue bows. Wetherill began to be lonely. He found as much laboratory exercise as he cared for in the soap-works, but at this time he did not want much, for it was summer and there was no Otto-Sommerschein about. The books sup plied him by his uncle he tried to read; but even an erudite work on "Symbolism" and Jourdain s "Philosophic de Saint Thomas d Aquin" put him to sleep, and his uncle began to fear more and more that the visit to Brae- ton was spiritually a mistake. Some French sonnets, which had strayed into the bookcase, THE WARNING interested him after he had seen a tall girl with red-tinted hair and the color of a pink oleander in her cheeks step out of a surrey and cross the pavement in front of the photographer s. Her white parasol became entangled in the fringe of the low awning over the door. Wetherill sprang forward. She gave him a glance, but did not thank him. He went back to the sonnets. "And fills with heaven s gold the dazzled street," he repeated. "It must have been Rosalia O Keefe a white soul," said the priest, in answer to his artful questions. "She sings in the choir and looks after the altar. You re not likely to meet her; she has a different point of view socially, you know." Father Blodgett fancied that this conveyed to his nephew a very delicate hint. "I would 97 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS give anything in the world if that dear boy could have the consolation of faith/ he thought, as Wetherill went off with his kodak in the direction of the photographer s. O Keefe, broad, burly, and cheerful, was at the corner, shaking hands with a group of Italian laborers and their wives who were starting for a picnic, given at his expense ; for he was an expert politician. Wetherill noticed that his daughter was like him in her high color and air of strength; but how exquisite, with all this resemblance! The Italians drifted, with a brass band in the direction of the river. O Keefe shook hands cordially with Wetherill. "A score of votes there," he said with a soft brogue. "And I m glad to thank you again for the help you gave the foreman the other day ; the new soap s the finest stuff yet. It s you, is it?" Rosalia, in a plumed hat and white gown, THE WARNING had approached to speak to her father, ignor ing Wetherill. "My daughter Rosalia, Mr. Wetherill; and I J m glad to make you acquainted. She s stayed at home because father couldn t go with her to the sea, and she deserves to meet a nice young man." O Keefe laughed heart- ily. Wetherill drew his heels together and clicked them. Rosalia looked at him, smiled slightly, and began to ask her father questions. Such eyes ! A bit of a sonnet stole across his mind: "You were so slow to draw the graceful shade Of tremulous eyelash which deep shadows made That from the darkness shot a star s long ray." Wetherill waited; but he gained nothing by it. Rosalia turned with another engaging smile for her father, which showed faultless 99 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS teeth, just in time to enter the surrey, driven up by one of her freckled little brothers. Wetherill was left to gaze at the pensile white plumes and the floating lace of the parasol. "I m proud of that girl, Mr. Wetherill," O Keefe said heartily. "Faith, she s the apple of my eye. She talks well, and you should hear her sing." "I should like to," said Wetherill, eagerly. "She 11 sing at mass on Sunday, please God," O Keefe said. "Good-by, sir; I am off to make a deal in lumber over the river." From Friday until Sunday Wetherill wan dered through the streets. The surrey, with the freckled boy, was hitched before the grocer s in Randolph street on Saturday morn ing ; but after he had taken the trouble to con verse with the freckled boy about baseball news for half an hour, Mrs. O Keefe waddled 100 THE WARNING out of the shop, and took no notice of him. On Sunday Father Blodgett was delighted, when he ascended the pulpit to make a short discourse on the gospel of the day, by the sight of his nephew at the end of a pew. This sight gave an unusual fervor to his thoughivind ex pression. :* ,V : : ; : As the congregation went out, Wetherill lingered. In the vestibule he came face to face, as he had hoped, with Rosalia, in the sheerest white, which brought out her splendid color ravishingly. "Oh, Mr. Wetherill," she exclaimed, "you here!" Then she paused and blushed as only a brunette with blond hair and red reflections in it can blush. "I trust that I am not out of place/ he said gravely. The music was beautiful, and my uncle certainly looks the part." "His sermon was perfectly lovely. Tears almost came to my eyes." Wetherill looked 101 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS into them, and felt dizzy. "There can be no love without faith; we must believe to love; it is so true!" "You are right, Miss O Keefe; I was much touched." "Oh,. don t you think you could believe?" she said suddenly. The vestibule was empty now. "Pardon me, but I was told that" Wetherill laughed. "That I was an atheist, I suppose. It s not true," he added warmly. " I am not prepared to say that anything is untrue." "How good of you!" she said in her low, rich tones, which carried a touch of her father s brogue. At that moment Wetherill felt more like a crusader than a doctor of philosophy from the university in which Von Schleicher was the shining star. He took her roll of music. 1 02 THE WARNING "So you liked my O Salutaris at the offer tory?" "It was divine." "I m sorry that Isabella Moldonovo is not at home; she is such a help. But I should like you to assist me with the German words in Violets/ I know that my pronunciation is not exactly Hanoverian, and I m to sing over at Grayton for the Germans in October. Per haps" "May I call to-night?" "Yes," she said shyly. He gave the roll of music to the other freckled brother, who was waiting, and went in ecstasy into the rectory. "She s nabbed him," pronounced Maginnis, as he entered Mrs. Magee s dining-room. "I saw him coming out of church with her." "The bold creature!" cried Herself. "And he a ravening wolf of an infidel. It s Father Dudley will have the sore heart." 103 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "And if I had been a banshee from the other world/ said Maginnis, "I could n t have given her unfortunate parent a solemner warning." FATHER BLODGETT was extremely cheerful at dinner. Wetherill s interest in religious mat ters gave him much to say; he could hardly satisfy his nephew s curiosity. Von Schlei- cher seemed to be "out," as well as Spencer. "Of course," Wetherill said, over the coffee "of course I am not prepared to accept dog matic Christianity in any form ; but there may be forces at work which science will not be able to explain in eons. It s a big proposition to disprove your mysteries; there may be even a fourth dimension; and when religion is brought home to the heart " Wetherill pulled himself up, and, with a blush, substi tuted, "by such a sermon as yours to-day, one feels that there are motives impalpable nebulae 104 THE WARNING that the scalpel or the microscope cannot reach." Father Blodgett bent his head for a moment. Ah, what a dear, clear-minded, reverent boy! His cup of joy was full when he heard Wether- ill, in his room later, whistling, off the key, the "O Salutaris" of the morning. Rosalia O Keefe approved of Wetherill when he appeared, attired in black, in the even ing; he had compromised by donning what used to be called a Tuxedo coat. Rosalia mastered the words of "Violets" without diffi culty under his tuition. She let him play the easy accompaniment because she knew her hands were large. She talked about her father, the matchless one, a sigh from the log gia reminding them at long intervals that there was a mother somewhere. She touched on society, of which she knew nothing, but which she detested. Then he talked of him- 8 105 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS self, of his research work, of his aspirations, until the snores from the loggia induced him to realize that it was nearly midnight. Ro salia did not ask him to come again ; she merely pinned a bit of scarlet sage to his lapel. At breakfast Wetherill asked his uncle for books dealing with the history of Christianity. With trembling heart the priest gave him Dollinger s "J ew an< i Gentile World," regret ting that he had not the German edition. "Miss O Keefe is a very serious girl; I saw her last night." "Ah, yes," said Father Blodgett. "She s a convent girl, I believe; they are never co quettes. O Keefe s a good man, too. I am sorry that there are no intellectual people of your own class here." Wetherill raised his eyes in amazement, but, then, what did his uncle know about women? Miss O Keefe "week-ended," as the "Star" put it, at Grayton, and so Wetherill did not 1 06 THE WARNING meet her until Tuesday evening at the Bracton brass-band concert in the new park. She wore no hat, and her hair was like a "regal coronet," he said. She was in flimsy white as usual. At first she did not notice him ; but just as the clarinet began Schubert s "Sere nade," his eyes met hers, and he knew that she understood him. "Intellectual"? What did his uncle mean? As if a girl with such eyes could be unintellectual. Mrs. O Keefe was eluded by her daughter, who walked home in the moonlight with Wetherill. Maginnis managed to pass the O Keefes driven to it by Herself about eleven o clock. Wetherill was taking his leave at the gate. "No, no," he heard Rosalia say; "there can be no love without " Maginnis loitered, but he could not catch the next words; he concluded that Miss O Keefe was making a "near" bargain for her mar riage portion, and so he told Herself. "It J s 107 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS a carriage and pair she 11 have, or no mar riage," he said. "There s some that would sell their souls for lucre/ said Herself, with appealing glances to the ceiling. "When I was young, Magee married me, though I had ten pounds less than Maggie McGraw." What Rosalia had really said was that "there could be no love without a spiritual basis." And then she had quoted, in her melt ing tones, "There is a Reaper whose name is Death," which was as effective as if it had been appropriate. Wetherill said little; he could have listened to her forever. There were some phenomena he had not analyzed under Otto-Sommerschein or Von Schleicher ; he knew that now. When O Keefe came out to look at the thermometer fastened to the locust-tree near the gate, Wetherill started as if he might be suspected of having his arm about Rosalia s waist. 1 08 THE WARNING Father Blodgett had no reason to complain of his nephew s interest in religious matters; in fact, he went so fast that the pastor had surreptitiously to brush up his theology. And when the priest went off for his week s retreat, his nephew begged to remain until he came back. "I say, uncle," he declared, as he bade good- by to his reverend relative at the train, "a re ligion that can produce such examples of vir tue and correct living does n t have to be examined. A man s a fool who wants to an alyze that sort of thing. You don t look at the roots of a big oak." His uncle was somewhat disturbed by his enthusiasm. Wetherill waited till the down train brought in a large box of roses for him. Father Blodgett, if he had seen this, would have been alarmed ; but he went away, at peace with all the world, and with simple joy in his heart. 109 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Father Dudley missed the next visit of Maginnis; for the retreat intervened, and on his return he was so busy that he forgot all about Guy Wetherill. Two weeks after the retreat, the bishop at breakfast opened a letter marked "Personal." "Ah-a!" he said to his secretary who was opposite to him, as usual. "One of your friends at Bracton writes to me Miss Rosa lia O Keefe. She wants to be married by a bishop; thinks it will be more educational to the groom s Protestant relatives. And here is an inclosure from the happy groom quite long." "Maginnis, a worthy man, warned her people, he tells me," broke in Father Dudley, aghast. "I hope there 11 be no remorse ; they ve been warned." "Warned? Why, Mr. Wetherill s lan guage is most edifying. He is of the faithful ; he seems to be most devout. He says that if no THE WARNING more scientific men would embrace Christianity in its most convincing form, the case of Gali leo could not be repeated, and science would be more truly scientific in its aspirations." "The Lord deliver us!" cried Father Dud ley. Then he said to himself, "There will be no standing those O Keefes now !" "At last," said the bishop, taking off his glasses, "religion and science are indissoluble. Your occupation is gone." "Bishop," said Father Dudley, "a joke on such a serious " The bishop looked up as one utterly shocked, and Father Dudley was rebuked. "I shall not be able to solemnize the mar riage," said the bishop, breaking the silence; "but I shall invite them to come here for a visit. It will be an auspicious occasion." On the day after the announcement of the engagement of Guy Wetherill and Rosalia O Keefe the cheerful pair called on Father in THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Blodgett. He felt that he ought to be happy ; but, even as he blessed them, the thought crossed his mind that Rosalia might one day look like her mother. "Well, well, my dear," he said, with a slight sigh, "take good care of him, he s an orphan, and I trust, my child, you 11 encourage his scientific aspirations." "I 11 try to make him an all-around politi cian, like father/ Rosalia said firmly. Father Blodgett shivered. 112 IV THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT THE bishop looked at the heap of opened letters near the plate of his secretary and remarked that coffee might freeze in a dining-room without a fire even in early autumn weather. His secretary was about to say this was an exaggeration, but he merely opened his last letter with one of the steel table-knives, and read it carefully. "I can never eat, bishop/ he said, "with much on my mind." "It is different with me," answered the bishop, gravely: "I can never eat with much in my stomach." Father Dudley ignored this. It was frivo lous. 113 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Ah-a!" he murmured, "Mrs. Westbro Edith Baumgarten ah-a !" The Bishop, looking at him, smiled; and, as the bishop smiled, his eyes caught a mellow light such as one sees when the sunshine illu minates a great brown grape. "By the way," he said, "the Star gives a long account of a theatrical performance at Bracton last evening." "Oh, yes," answered Father Dudley, feel ing that he was on the defensive; "just a trifle of a play acted by the young people in the new parish hall. I went over to make the opening address. After the preaching of the mission, which lasted a week, the people needed a bit of relaxation, and, with the whole place in a state of grace and everybody afraid of hell, there could be no harm in a little amusement. Maginnis was the chief usher, and a more polished manner in a poor man I never saw." 114 THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT The bishop shook his head. "The theater/ he began doubtfully, "I al most fear " " T was a classical play," said Father Dud ley, with impatience, "and never an objection able word against faith or morals in it. T was The Lady of Lyons/ and little Ellen Reilly, whose father is one of the honestest Kerry boys living, made a pretty picture, I can tell you. Faith, the play s all innocent sentiment from beginning to end. Is it put ting young people in cages, like black Puritans, you d be?" The bishop s eyes twinkled. "Well, well," he said, "you know more about these things than I do. I have no time for light literature." Father Dudley raised his head quickly; the bishop s air was so dovelike that he felt it was time to come to the point. "Oh, by the way," he said carelessly, "I ve THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS a letter from Mrs. Westbro. She writes that her niece " "Which niece?" asked the bishop. "Edith Evelyn. Well, Edith wants to marry or, at least, her aunt thinks so young Lieutenant Curtice, and she begs me to ask you to use your influence to bring Edith to common sense. Martin Baumgarten is much interested in her." "What, that middle-aged brewer?" "A prosperous man," answered Father Dudley, nailing the bishop with his eyes, "and he attends to his religious duties scrupu lously." "But," said the bishop, putting his napkin into its ring, "he weighs more than you and I together, and he is over fifty. No, I will not bring little Edith to common sense and Baumgarten. Besides, I don t believe in match-making. Why are priests and nuns such match-makers ? There s Mother Gon- 116 I THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT zaga at the convent; she s ninety, but she ll move heaven to assist a marriage at any time. Even St. Teresa liked that sort of manage ment. I must say I am surprised that you should be so sentimental." "Sentimental !" repeated Father Dudley, reddening. "Is it because I want to save a young girl from a matrimonial union with a penniless minion of a political party which has done its best to undermine the faith and morals of the Filipinos?" The bishop hid his mouth with his hand. "If," he said in a severe voice, "I can be convinced that Willie Curtice really intends to undermine the faith and morals of the Sultan of Zulu, I " but he paused in the face of a lengthy political discussion. "The rich Baumgarten will have to brew his own beer. Tell Mrs. Westbro so; and give my compli ments to Edith." The bishop rose, and his secretary saw him 119 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS leave the room before he could find words to reply. What prudent man could doubt the future happiness of Edith Evelyn united to the worthy Martin Baumgarten, whose filial devotion was crystallized in the shape of two Munich windows in the Lady chapel dedicated to the memory of Conrad and Kunigunde Baumgarten? Father Dudley gathered up his letters, and went to his room to begin the reading of his breviary. Edith Evelyn was an orphan heiress, the only daughter of Campbell Evelyn, of Evelyn, Bond & Co., in morocco leather, Baltimore and Calcutta. The name is enough, if you know Bradstreet. Edith had recently come back from a three years stay at a convent called Les Oiseaux in Paris. Mrs. Westbro, her mater nal aunt, who came of so great a family, with so many "signers" in it, that at colonial balls she had to do several lightning-change acts 1 20 THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT to appear in the costumes of all her ances tresses, and been so poor since the war that she considered Edith s long Maryland pedi gree as of small consequence compared with the union of millions with millions. Willie Curtice was also very great, from the ancestral point of view, several of his forebears being actually mentioned by Horace Walpole and Lady Sarah Lennox as having ruined them selves, before their emigration, at White s; but he had no income except his pay as a first lieutenant in the army of the United States. When Father Dudley had read the neces sary part of his office and carefully marked the place with a card announcing a coming con cert of the Kerry Men s Association, he took up Mrs. Westbro s letter again. It was written in a fine Italian hand and ran thus: 121 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS As Edith persists in her foolish refusal to think over the proposal of Mr. Baumgarten, by the way, I believe that he is really entitled to write von before his name, his parents when they came to this country having, with strange modesty, dropped the particle, I have sent her to Miss White at the Lodge, for, though we of the younger branch cannot boast of country houses at Lakewood and Newport, like the elder branch, which has never hesi tated to enter into the vulgar Yankee scramble for money, we have one little manor, at least, left. You know the lodge and you know Miss White. A sojourn among the mountains in the lonely fall I have always hated the Lodge in the fall will bring Edith to her senses. She will see, too, Mr. Curtice s horrible little estate of Brierly, or as we originally call it, the Curtice place, his only patrimony, though no doubt, under Yankee rule in the Philip pines he will be enabled to increase his posses sions at the expense of the assimilated natives. A vastly fine home it is to bring a well-bred girl to. The pride of those Curtices! His father used to talk as if he were a Virginian or a North Carolinian, and you know how they boast, as if they really did much for the Con- 122 THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT f ederacy, after all ! As to Edith, she I really cannot deny it is a problem she is what they call a modern girl, I suppose. Old Judge Waldegrave stopped in the other day for a cup of tea, and I was just telling him that, after all, sweetness and gentleness and female tact were to be found only in our part of the South, where poverty which we have all known since the war softened the natural haughti ness of culture and blood, when he asked which school she had attended. "I m a Bird," she answered, with an indescribable ac cent on the phrase, which is a shocking pun on the name of her convent, "Les Oiseaux." It was almost a sacrilege; I prevented the judge from showing his amazement by insist ing on a few extra drops of Santa Cruz in his tea. Married to that Curtice, she would be in the frivolous circles of the federal army, where, I hear, some of the women smoke, encouraged in these modern ways. Do per suade the dear bishop to help us. With all her faults, Edith has a genuine respect for him. Father Dudley admired himself as one who was not the little brother of the rich and 9 123 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS fashionable. He sniffed at the violet perfume of the letter with disapprobation. He looked on Mrs. Westbro as an aged and glittering social butterfly, valuable principally as a pa troness for church fairs and other functions when the evil disposition of mankind made an appeal to the worldly necessary. As far apart as the poles on most subjects, he and she were united in politics : she saw the hand of the devil in every movement of the government in the Philippines. On other questions he held that she was a trifler; but his interest in Martin Baumgarten forced him to weigh every line of her letter. "Nefarious!" he said, taking a pinch of snuff, and then dusting his cassock with a bandana handkerchief. "Nefarious !" And he meant Willie Curtice and the government. No Marylander could have been more in love than Willie Curtice, and the Marylanders have a talent for love second only to the Vir- 124 THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT ginians. He knew that he was not specially clever, but he thought that Edith did not really care for clever persons, and it consoled him. He was a year older than Edith; brown, with an air of well-balanced strength, both mental and physical; a man who seemed to have all those interesting capabilities that help in the learning of the soldier s trade. Edith was neither blonde nor brown, and she was not so tall and slender as the other women of her family and for this Mrs. Westbro blamed a Yankee grandmother; she was graceful, alert, and her violet eyes, heavily lashed, enraptured the susceptible and caused the dispassionate to regard her as a girl who could appreciate them. For two long weeks Mrs. Westbro had not permitted Curtice to speak a word to Edith. He had followed her into a street-car, and hung by a strap near her; but her aunt had the op posite seat. He had sauntered into the library 125 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS where Mrs. Westbro sometimes read, and one day, while she was deep in a volume of "Godey s Lady s Book" for 1852, he had begun to pour out his soul to Edith; but the learned attendant said, "Silentium !" in a hollow tone, and the aunt, raising her lorgnette just at the wrong time, had taken the adored one off with her. It was now the loth of the month, and he must sail from San Francisco on the 26th. Baumgarten was clever ; he had made so much money, she might learn to doubt the only heart that could ever love her, and accept Baumgar ten. But that was impossible, for Baumgar ten was fat and bald, Baumgarten could not dance; and yet, what if, deeming him Willie used the word "deeming" in his thoughts for the first time irresponsive, she should take Baumgarten! Oh for a word with her! If he could only get her assurance that she would wait a little while, or, best of all, if he could 126 THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT only induce her to go off with him to the Phil ippines! Other ladies were going with their husbands by the transport. He knew that Edith was of age and her own mistress; Mrs. Westbro, who was strewing the path of the ponderous Baumgarten with roses, was only her aunt. Hours seemed days ; his fever grew. Chaucer s young squire he of the love-locks was more master of his heart than this lieu tenant. When he heard many tips to a sym pathetic butler were the price of knowledge that Edith had gone to the Lodge in the moun tains, near his own little place, Brierly, he was almost equally divided between hope and de spair. His symptoms were the usual ones ap propriate to the occasion, but they were made more piquant by the knowledge that Miss Charlotte White, who lived at the Lodge, was a dragon. She had been governess to gener ations of Westbros and Evelyns, and had earned a nimbus and an aureole, together with 127 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS free food and lodging for life, by the strictness of her principles and her devotion to the mem ory of the Calvert families and the Lost Cause. She spoke with measured doubt of the preten sions of Virginia as a State of heroes, as she was a North Carolinian by nature. By way of protest against all governments not found ed on the principles of romance, she had joined the White Rose Society. She often spoke of the Young Pretender as if he lived down the road. Mrs. Westbro kept away from Miss White, because their opinions were as much alike as their temperaments were unlike. Miss White s favorite dependent was Maginnis, whose mother-in-law was intrusted with the "doing up" of certain precious articles. Ma ginnis, who stepped in to make a respectful call occasionally on the way from Bracton, was not only a good listener, but he was the first man who had told Miss White that she pos sessed both beauty and the art of brilliant con- 128 THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT versation. He did this with many apologies and an artless hesitation which gave her a high opinion of his truthfulness. The Lodge was a square house, with a dozen columns in front, built, Miss White said, after a plan suggested by the Count de Beaujolais to Great-grandfather Evelyn. It was supposed to be after the manner of Louis Seize ; at pres ent it was very well painted. A mile and a half away, by a mountainous road, was Willie Curtice s place, Brierly. It, like the Lodge, was surrounded by clumps of great oaks, and, like the Lodge, it was approached by one of the stoniest and most uneven lanes that ever vexed the temper of a coachman. It was in the center of about thirty acres of neglected fields and orchards. The galleries sagged un der the shadowed damp of many seasons and the weight of untrammeled vines. Willie Cur tice s father had no money for fresh paint. After Willie went to West Point he nursed 129 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS the wound received at Bull Run, and read the eighteenth-century essayists and his son s let ters, until he died. The place had been "worked on shares," but there never seemed to be more than one share. FATHER DUDLEY was so busy during the days following his conversation with the bishop that it was not until after he had arranged his five- minute sermon for the next Sunday that the importance of Martin Baumgarten was again forced on his mind. "Dear me!" he said, chuckling, "I believe the bishop s half right, I Ve a real sentimental spot in me somewhere. Sure, we Ve got to take the world as we find it, and, admitting that the female sex is what it is, I believe that all Martin Baumgarten needs is a touch of ro mance. He s a fine figure of a man, and all young Curtice has is the sentiment. Thank Heaven, the only novel I Ve ever read is Carle- 130 THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT ton s Willy Reilly, which has no offence to pious ears in it; but if I were Martin, in this degenerate age when every colleen is wasting her time on fictitious recitals, I d see that she d find as much sentiment as would be edifying about myself. Dear, dear! how the bishop would laugh if he knew the sentiment that s really in me !" On the impulse of the moment, Father Dud ley wrote, all in the glow of romance, to Mar tin Baumgarten. As it happened, Baumgar- ten was not in Baltimore, but at Lakewood, so the letter, received by his chief bookkeeper, was kept for two weeks, Baumgarten having ordered that only important business commu nications should be forwarded to him. The letter said: Mrs. Westbro s niece will be at the Lodge for a week or two, and you can run down on Sunday in your automobile. There is nothing, except a murdering soldier s uniform, that THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS strikes the female fancy like an automobile. Mind that, Martin ! It s the romance of your sudden appearance in that lonely place, where you ve had no rivals for a fortnight other than the Young Pretender and Stonewall Jackson, that will do the job. There is nothing that will make the sentimental female turn to a live man so much as a sojourn with dead ones, no matter how illustrious the corpses are. Don t waste words as Horatius Flaccus says: "Simplici myrto nihil allabores Sedulis euro." Miss White s principles are with you; but, re member, only the automobile no other sign of luxury! It happened that, as the astute secretary was thinking of Maginnis as a possible acolyte at the shrine of sentiment, a knock sounded at the door; and Maginnis, having been told three times to enter, came just beyond the thresh old. "I thought I d give you time to put on your 132 THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT Roman collar, father," said Maginnis, as one who knew the ways of the clergy. "I came over to vespers, and to see if I could be in the way of servin your reverence." Father Dudley saw with satisfaction that Maginnis s broadcloth frock-coat was neatly brushed and that he wore a pink carnation in his buttonhole. He held his ancient tall hat in a manner which symbolized both duty and pleasure. "How are they all at home?" asked Father Dudley, in a tone in which dignity and sym pathy were judiciously mingled. "They re two pounds heavier than any chil- der in Bracton," said Maginnis, eagerly, "and I m countin the O Keefe twins, too, though they re a year and a half older. We re all well, barrin Herself." "Dear me! Sit down, my good man. What s the matter?" Maginnis s face became woeful. "Herself s 133 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS the finest washerwoman in Bracton; but, fa ther, religion has done its worst for her, and me and Mary Ann have n t the life of Chris tians with her goings-on/ "Is it blasphemy you re at?" asked Father Dudley, in amazement. "Beggin your reverence s pardon, t was the mission that did it. The Redemptioner fathers preached in the church twice a day for a week; since they left, Bracton s been as dhry as a stick fit for the firin . There is n t a shebeen- house open except the wine-shop for the Da gos, who look on drinkin as the breath of life where a decent man would be seen takin a drop too much. The sermon on hell was the most elegant thing I ve heard since I listened to you, sir you could hear your hair frizzle but, instead of f eelin the effect of it for a week or two, Herself has kept it up, and it s a real tombstone she is in the house. And, worst of all, your reverence, she wants to change the 134 A manner which symbolized both duty and pleasure THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT names of the twins from Finn and Finola she says they re heathen names to Alphon- sus and Philomena!" Maginnis made a noise in his throat, to intimate the degradation which this statement involved. "And for cheerful ness, there s as little about the place as if the curse of Cromwell was on us." "Indeed?" said Father Dudley. There was a pause, during which Maginnis s eyes were turned anxiously toward the only man who, he believed, could help him out of this gloomy spot in life. "Your mother-in-law is a valiant wo man, but no doubt she aims too immoder ately at perfection. By the way, Maginnis, if you should be required to be of service to a former parishioner of mine, who is paying at tentions, with a view to matrimony, to a young lady visiting the Lodge, do so. I will give him your address. He may need an honest man. Bracton s only three miles from the Lodge, you know." 137 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Thanks, your reverence," said Maginnis, pocketing the usual dollar. There was a shade on his face. He hesitated as he stood up. "If you would n t mind," he said at last, "I wish you d lighten up hell a little for Herself. The fear of it is ruinin her entirely ; and it s not only for her own soul she s afeared, but for mine and Mary Ann s and the childer. She was almost for sprinklin me with holy wather because I went the other night to the little piece of play-actin in the hall beyant. If the clargy take to play-actinV says she, observin you there, the church will suffer more nor it has suffered since the death of Charles Stew art Parnell. " Father Dudley frowned. "You have a certain intuition of right on your side, Maginnis ; the preaching of some of us is, I fear, at times tinctured with rigorism, and the effect on the delicate female mind, which has not been trained to distinguish, is 138 THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT to produce scruples of conscience. I 11 think the matter over, Maginnis." Maginnis, very red under the sandy stubble which even the Sunday s shave could not en tirely destroy, held the door open, to make an other appeal. "I Ve been forced to threaten Herself," he said in a low and awful voice. "I Ve been driven to the extremity of sayin I d take away the childer, especially the twins, and of pre- sumin I Ve a place to go." "Don t exaggerate, Maginnis," said Fa ther Dudley, severely. "You will not be obliged to leave your house ; we shall see what can be done." And Maginnis went away, disconsolate. WILLIE CURTICE had rushed down to Brierly as soon as he discovered from Mrs. Westbro s butler that Edith Evelyn had gone to the Lodge; and on the old pike road, which runs 139 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS past both the Lodge and Brierly, Maginnis saw him standing among the wild asters, early on one of the crispest Thursdays of the month of October. He stood at the end of Brierly Lane, his kit-bag in his hand, looking helplessly up and down the road. Maginnis was sad as he sauntered homeward with his empty basket, having delivered some of Mrs. Magee s laundry work at the Lodge. He had tried to read a much-thumbed copy of "The Lady of Lyons," but his attention was distracted, and his eyes were lusterless. "Pagan names!" he muttered. "Pagan names! And Herself dared to say it! With Finn and Finola Christian names in Ireland long before St. Patrick discovered the distress ful country !" His groans were checked by the sight of the anxious Curtice. "Tis Father Dudley s young man," he thought; "and it s a fine presence he has." 140 THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT "Ho, I say!" Curtice called out, "I find that the boy who took care of this place has left without giving me warning. I reckon that you might come in and give me a hand if you re not in a hurry. I Ve just come from the train, and I want shaving-water and other things." "Is it to the Lodge you re goin ?" Maginnis allowed one of his eyebrows to drop. Curtice looked at him keenly; but Ma- ginnis s eyes disarmed him. "Faith, I know all about it," said Maginnis, with unction, "and I m your man with a heart and a half. I 11 fix you up so that the lady be- yant will think you re Claude Melnotty him self ; and, by the same token, I ve been valet to the most particular gentleman hereabouts; and whisper, if you should want a marriage license, I m the wan that can get it for you." Again the right eye of Maginnis drooped; 141 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS again Curtice frowned, and again was dis armed. "HE went away," said Maginnis, later, "like a flower o the May, and he came back like a weepin -willow. It did me good to see him go off whistlin a chime, for all the world as if there wasn t a sorrow in life; but it didn t last." Mary Ann sighed; she took "The Lady of Lyons" from beneath the brilliant patchwork quilt under which, in a double cradle, Finn and Finola reposed. "Is Herself comin ?" she asked abruptly, throwing the paper-covered play-book under her chair. "No, t was the wind," answered Maginnis, after a pause. He resumed the play and care fully marked a place. "I opened the old house for the lad, as his reverence would have had me do, and I got hot wather for his shavin 142 I m the wan that can get it for you" THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT and his bath. He made quick work, but the room was like an earthquake with collars and neckties he was afther tryin them all on and he came down as rosy as the twins afther their dip in brown soap and wather. There was a look in his eyes " "Twas the sentiment that did it," sighed Mary Ann. "Do you remember the play where Claude Melnotte goes away to the war?" "I mind it well," said Maginnis. "And it s sintiment that makes me stand up for the names of my own childer against Herself ; for, Mary Ann, what s the differ between us and the Da gos? T is sintiment." "And education," said Mary Ann. "And edication," said Maginnis. "Is she comin ?" he asked anxiously. Mary Ann hastily threw her apron over the obnoxious drama. The twins turned as one 145 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS child, and Mary Ann moved the lamp farther from them. "It s no life at all ; she has locked up the few drops of poteen sent me by my own cousin the last time he sent the shamrock, and she won t let me whistle to the childer o Sundays; as to the novel-readin , she s no better than an Ul ster Orangeman." "It s a home of our own we need, Maginnis," said Mary Ann, with a sigh; "I could have stood anything but her changing the names of my own children, though she s been a good mother to me." "Pagan names!" Maginnis breathed fierce ly. "Sure, they were ours long before the curse o Cromwell came. T is a home of our own we 11 have, Mary Ann." He added with portentous gravity : "I Ve a bit of letther in my pocket, for it has been a hard and joyful day. I Ve pleased his reverence, and I Ve had my reward. A home we 11 have before this 146 THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT day week, Mary Ann." He thrust his hand through his bristling hair, and seized the book of the play. "Is it mad you are, Maginnis ?" asked Mary Ann, looking at his open mouth with astonish ment. He wrinkled his forehead, and read in a hoarse whisper, the play-book half concealed under the quilt: " Nay, dearest, nay, if thou wouldst have me paint the home to which, could love ful fill its intercessions this hand would lead thee, listen: a deep vale shut out by Alpean hills " "You re all sentiment, Maginnis," said Mary Ann. "Sure, I am," said Maginnis, reading with difficulty. " A gra-nd castle, liftin to eternal summers its marble walls from out a glossy bower The door opened suddenly, and Mrs. Magee, THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS in a black shawl and gown, her head crowned with a brown velvet hat ornamented with a wilted red plume, entered. "Is it play-actin I hear?" she asked in cold tones, contrasting with her energetic and not uncheerful face. "And to think of my own flesh and blood countenancin it: Maginnis, with a rose in his buttonhole, usherin Chris tian souls to destruction, and my own Mary Ann in a front seat with white kid gloves. Saints above! And after the mission, too! You 11 never have a day s luck, Maginnis ! The Lord be between us and ha-arrm ; but is it over the blessed cradle of Philomena and Al- phonsus that there s such goings-on?" Maginnis s arm, which had relaxed when Mrs. Magee entered, straightened furiously at the mention of the objectionable names. He fixed his eyes on the book, which now he ex posed boldly. " T is no play-actin , ma am," he said, while 148 * *" THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT Mary Ann watched as one fascinated, with no motion, except that of her lips as she silently followed his words. "I am, ma am, about to lead my family to a mansion where we 11 won- dher Mary Ann and me " he dropped his eyes to the book again, "why earth could be unhappy when the heavens left us youth and love" Said Mrs. Magee, with a stately wave of her umbrella : "I wondher myself whether we haven t a lunatic amongst us." "Ah-a," pursued Maginnis, still reading. " We 11 read no books " "You d be right there," said Herself, "for they re turnin your head." "Where was I? You ruthless disthroyer!" exclaimed Maginnis, losing his place. "You re mighty offensive!" cried Mrs. Ma- gee, removing her hat aggressively. "And to me to the woman that made you, you omad- THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS haun ! If I was n t in a state of grace, I d teach you a thing or two !" "I m afeard of no man, and," he added, with a slight tremolo, "of no woman either. To morrow I shall be free to call my own childer by their names." "The man s ravin , Mary Ann," said Her self, with an imperious air of proprietorship, smoothing the pillow of the twins. "If I had n t locked up the whisky with my own hands, I d think even worse of him." Mrs. Magee cast her shawl over the twins. "You Ve been neglectin Alphonsus, Mary Ann; t is sneezin he is." For the first time Mary Ann s eyes shone with the light of revolt. "Woman," said Maginnis (Mrs. Magee turned her back to him), "to-day, airly, I met a young lad who was as full of sintiment as your heart is distitute of it. Cruel crathures had siperated him from her he loved." (Mrs. THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT Magee laughed unfeelingly.) "He went to the Lodge; he was refused admittance. As I said, he was like a weepin -willow. Tut all the sintiment you can into a note/ says I, and I 11 take it to the colleen at the risk of my life/ says I. Done/ says he. And then he prom ised that if things came right Mary Ann and me should have his house rent free. Mary Ann, I felt my heart go out to the young man, and I took his note, written as much in his heart s blood as in ink; but, first, knowin what his reverence and a lady would expect under the circumstances, I got the names right, and went by trolley to Bracton for a marriage li cense." Maginnis s flight was so audacious that Mrs. Magee uttered another scornful laugh. "Miss White did n t mind me, and I gave the note to the young lady, and told her that the marriage license was ready, and that I d be one of the witnesses, and that Father Dudley 153 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS had put the poor weepin -willow of a lad in my care, and I made a movin picture, until she was dyin to go. So she just made an excuse about seein Father Blodgett, and off she came with me. I m informed that a telegram to the bishop did the rest; for Father Blodgett mar ried them, with me and the Dago housekeeper as witnesses, and the happy lad he was, and she as pretty as Finola there/ "I 11 not have the child paganized in my house !" cried Mrs. Magee. "In your house, ma am ; I go to my house to morrow, ma am!" "Oh, Maginnis!" exclaimed Mary Ann, "you re going too far ; we have no house." "Well he knows it," said Mrs. Magee, re gally; "I pay no more attention to his roman- cin than to the idle wind/ I shall take care of Alphonsus and Philomena, poor lambs! You can make play-actors of the rest, if you like; but them I shall keep!" And she THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT rocked the cradle with the air of one who ruled. "In this letther," said Maginnis, in a solemn voice, taking a sheet of paper from an envelop and laying it open under the lamp, "Leftenant Curtice makes me and my little family cura- thors and caretakers of his place called Brierly. And there it is, ma am !" Mrs. Magee snorted contemptuously, but she put on her glasses to read the paper. " T is true !" she exclaimed, turning to Mary Ann, as one utterly desolate. "Sure, I thought Maginnis was lyin ." "Did I ever lie, ma am/ asked Maginnis, with dignity, "except in the interest of truth? To-morrow we go hence!" "But you 11 leave the twins," said Herself, with sudden humility. "I J d never have said what I did if I had n t thought you were lyin , Maginnis. I must keep the twins ; t is my last request !" Maginnis was only a man, and for a moment 155 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS he relented; then he remembered that he was a son-in-law. "Never !" he muttered, "and 1 11 cross my heart to it." "Maginnis," Mrs. Magee continued solemnly, "I say no more. I saw a pagan Chinee op- enin the shutters of the shop beyant this morn- in , and I felt t was a warnin . The pagan and the foreigners will drive us to the dure yet, thanks to the likes of you !" She left the room slowly. "At least," said Maginnis, somewhat shak en, "I m all right with you, Mary Ann, and with his reverence. I feel, Mary Ann, though she s been a good mother to you, as if I was Erin rid of the bloody Saxon." "You did indulge in sentiment, after all/ re marked the bishop to Father Dudley on the morning after his secretary s return from a short sojourn in New York, where he had gone 156 Baumgarten THE REIGN OF SENTIMENT to arrange for the publication of his first vol ume of sermons. "I had a telegram from Fa ther Blodgett. Maginnis, it seems, had the li cense ready ; it s an easy matter in our State. As you were too far away to consult, I did what I could." "Well, well, well !" said Father Dudley, smil ing. "I told Martin Baumgarten that a little romance would settle things; I believe that I have a touch of sentiment." "There s a telegram for you, too, under your plate," said the bishop, fixing his eyes on the editorial page of the "Star." The secretary s face assumed a look of toler ance for the defects of the whole human race. He looked at the yellow slip jocosely, and began to read it aloud, but he checked himself. With out an unkind word to the bishop, he laid the paper down and peeled his orange, metaphoric ally turning his face to the wall. He no longer smiled, for Willie Curtice had said : 159 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Maginnis told me of your interest. Do not deserve it. Have helped to make Edith happy, as well as me. Soon as have seen Mrs. West- bro and explained your goodness, will start for Frisco. 1 60 V THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA MRS. THEOBOLDS, wife of the presi dent of Collamore College, had deter mined to enjoy herself. She was a tall, graceful woman, sufficiently old to have two sons among the sophomores and juniors at Yale, but, being a blonde, she would have looked younger if it were not for the two deep, upright wrinkles on her forehead, caused, the frivolous said, by twenty years association with the wives of the members of the faculty of this celebrated "fresh-water" college. The long vacation was a week old, and Mrs. Theo- bolds had now no fear of the educators and students that are the necessary evils of college 161 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS life. She could now wear the blue kimono, cut rather low in the neck, which Willie Curtice had sent to her from Manila, and imagine her self, on this lovely June morning, young again. At the breakfast-table, which sparkled and glit tered about a big blue bowl filled with yellow roses, she waited for the president, who was taking a leisurely shave. The room was filled with the scent of magnolias from the back gar den, while through the French window the red glow of a big bed of peonies seemed to tint the air. Mrs. Theobolds was a woman of high princi ples ; she discouraged gossip among her equals, but she believed that it was good for her in feriors to open their hearts to her. Maginnis had come over, as usual on Saturdays, with a basket of chickens and fresh eggs from the Cur tice place. As usual, Maginnis had been shown into the presence of "Madam Presi dent," as some of the wicked ladies of the fac- 162 THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA ulty had called this long-suffering woman. Collamore College, by the way, is two miles from Bracton, so that Maginnis s walk was not a long one, and a somewhat shorter distance from the city in which the bishop lived. The monastery of St. Thomas Celino was visible from trie college. There Maginnis often rested in his walk for converse with his friend Brother Felix who was unlike in all ways the friend of his dreams, the sympathetic Brother Gambo- rious. " T is not for the likes of me to complain to the likes of you, ma am/ said Maginnis, as he fixed on the basket at his feet his brown eyes, the gentle innocence of expression of which had made Mrs. Theobolds his firm friend; "but if ever a man was tormented, it s me. Women are a saycret society among themselves, ma am; and the man savin your presence is always on the outside. I don t say that my mother-in-law is n t a good woman ; but, after THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS drivin me and Mary Ann out of the house, ma am, to seek our own little home, Herself writes last week that she s dyin with the mis ery in her back, and Mary Ann must go to her at once, with the twins. It s a trick/ says I, knowin the ways of the world. Herself s no more sick an I am/ Then Mary Ann howls with grief. It s a broken heart she has, Ma- ginnis, says she, for the loss of the twins; an I 11 go to her if it costs my life, and off she went. And here I am, with the boarder, the little colored orphant and the other three chil dren with me. It s my duty, says Mary Ann. It s a saycret society savin your presence, ma am the women are." "I trust that your boarder, Mrs. Wetherill, is in good health," said Mrs. Theobolds, eva sively. "Rosalia O Keefe keeps to herself," an swered Maginnis, raising his eyes ; "and she s 164 THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA good to the children. She was gloomy enough when she came. Her husband has lost his money Herself wrote it to Mary Ann and he has left her/ added Maginnis, with a sigh, "for no reason at all except that the ladies over here did n t like her." "I trust, Maginnis, that you will contradict that," said Mrs. Theobolds, severely: "Dr. Wetherill was called away to read a paper be fore some learned societies in the North, and his wife closed her house on the campus and, as you know, went over to board with you. Dr. Wetherill has not been very long a mem ber of our faculty, but both he and his wife are highly respected. Two friends of his from a German university have been visiting my hus band, and I have n t had time to call. They are eminent professors, and they are in search of an American doctor for a special branch; but all our younger professors are unmarried THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS or have no children, and they want, it seems, a man with a family. Believe me, Dr. Wether- ill has had no money difficulties." "Herself knows/ said Maginnis, doggedly. "T is natural enough," he added, "that even the Dutch should n t want a doctor without ex perience. Maginnis/ said Mary Ann, just be fore we expected the twins, I 11 have no whip per-snapper of a doctor that has no children of his own/ " Mrs. Theobolds abruptly changed the sub ject. "Some of the Italians on the railroad would be better if they went to church, I fancy any church. Perhaps, if you would speak to your priest, he might look into the matter/ "Is it of the Dagos you re talkin , ma am ?" asked Maginnis, his face catching the tint of the peonies. "There s no religion in them livin on garlic and tomatoes, as they do, and 166 THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA hangin St. Joseph by the neck if he does n t give them what they want." "Ah," said Mrs. Theobolds, with a sigh, "I often think that if they could be taught to go direct to their Creator " She paused, for she feared that she was approaching delicate ground. "Sure, you don t expect the Almighty to waste his time with the likes of them!" ex claimed Maginnis. "Hasn t he given them enough Eye-talian saints of their own kind, with just enough sense to understand them ? Father Blodgett but he s a convert, with the Protestant drop still in him thinks like you, ma am ; but he 11 find out. And, sure, ma am, I m sorry that poor Rosy O Keefe s pride has had a fall ; I suppose that her and the doctor just had a bit of a row, as most married folks have the best of us, ma am?" Mrs. Theobolds made no reply, and Magin- THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS nis, having discovered, as he thought, that Ro salia s husband was a doctor out of a place, and that there had been a lovers quarrel, stooped to show his patroness the symmetry of the eggs and the freshness of the chickens. His heart went out to Rosalia. "Sure," he thought, "even Herself could never hold anything against Rosalia, now that she s down in the world." Before he left, Maginnis managed to perme ate the air with so much reverence for beauty that Mrs. Theobolds felt that the blue kimono had indeed made her young again. A little later, Maginnis, with his empty bas ket, stepped into the monastery garden to see his friend Brother Felix, with whom, on vari ous accounts, he had opened business relations. Brother Felix, wearing monastic sandals, with his brown robe tucked up, was clipping the box hedges that bordered the main approach to the monastery. An amiable smile shone on his 168 , " I in just wonderin whether you ; d look so much like smilin" baby if you had a mother-in-law " THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA placid face, and he received with a nod of the head the twenty-five nails Maginnis had bor rowed from him a month before. "I m not envyin you," said Maginnis, pull ing up his blue overalls and* looking thought fully at the stout brother; "but I m just won- derin whether you d look so much like a smil- in baby if you had a mother-in-law. It was n t till after Eve ate the apple that mother-in-laws came into the world at all, at all." Brother Felix shook his head and tried to dig up a stiff bit of plantain from the gravel with his big toe, a process which his sandal made easier. Brother Felix was stout and cheerful, but he took life seriously and silently. "Atam might have been better by his lone self," he said at last, tying the white cord more tightly around his waist, and clipping a few feet of the hedge. "But I do not know. It is foolish to think. It is better to pray." Maginnis asked after the German professors, 171 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS who, one of Mrs. Theobold s retainers had told him, were sojourning in the monastery. "If your wife makes not long away," said Brother Felix, "I will send them to board with you. They are very learned men, and they bring let ters from Germany to the father abbot. At first/ continued Brother Felix, wiping his shears with a wisp of hay, "I thought they came to our holy house for religion, but I find out that it was for the beer. We make good beer ; they are infidels, but gemuthlich." Maginnis waited while Brother Felix silent ly shook his head until his little brown skullcap threatened to fall off. "Ach, sehr gemuthlich," he added. "They are professors from Prussia Herr Doctor Brach- stein, who is old, and Herr Doctor Scherm- Weinhausen, who is younger. They lived at the college, seeking for a doctor to take home with them who knows the American ways ; they talk to me when I take water to them. They 172 THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA liked not the American ways at the college. The ladies were too fine, and there were no children about; there were many dinners at night, but no Geinilthlichkeit ; there was no home. They will give much money to our American doctor; but they do not like to have at home wives, who are as grand as court Da- men, who cannot care for the home or the chil dren. Such doctors wives would be a bad ex ample to the female youth of the fatherland. They are infidels," said Brother Felix, slowly, "but about women they are right." "Is it truth you re tellin me?" demanded Maginnis, intensely interested. Brother Felix unearthed a small sorrel root. "Germans do not lie : the Irishers cannot un derstand that. Shall I get you some beer ?" The monastery was prevented, by the preju dices of the bishop, from selling the excellent beer, the secret of which its friars had import ed; but there was no law against giving it to 173 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS the neighbors, and some -of the neighbors, con sequently, seemed to love the friars as them selves. "All in good time," exclaimed Maginnis, his face intent; "tell me about these Dutch." "They are not Dutch," said Brother Felix; "they are Prussians." "It J s no time for nonsense," answered Ma ginnis. "The Dutch are all the same. Am I to understand that they re lookin for a mar ried doctor with children? and that they would n t take one from the college ? It s wantin to be even with the black Orangemen up there I am ! There s that stuck-up O Keef e girl marryin out of her own people," he solilo quized, while Brother Felix patiently cleaned the path of almost invisible weeds. "I warned her the saints know I warned her and the college people don t think she s their equal, and the proud Irish blood in her has rose up against her husband, and she s a lone woman again ! THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA Sure, she s only a Tip ; but blood s thicker than water any day. The black Saxon crowd at the college shall see our Irish girl go ahead of them or I m not Maginnis." "They are not bad people/ said Brother Fe lix. "You speak too much against holy char ity. The herr professors I have heard them talk find many learned men at the college; but they do not like the ladies: they are too amerikanisch. They like women who take care of the children, who make the coffee, and who will not corrupt the manners of the good Ger man female youth." "Oh, holy Moses!" said Maginnis, "I wish they d take Herself ! You 11 send them to me as boarders, though what I m to do with them, with only the little nigger to help, I don t know." "Ja wohl," answered Brother Felix, amiably. "Their beer can be sent to them every day. They have been with us long enough." 175 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "If Rosalia O Keef e only had a child or two ! Bad -cess to him ! Why did n t that Wetherill meet her four years ago ? It s a great chance entirely for a young doctor to get a big prac tice in a foreign country, and Rosalia will be best away from the college upstarts. Do these Dutch, or Prooshins, speak English at all?" Maginnis asked gloomily. "A few vorts," Brother Felix replied; "but they speak Irish already/ Maginnis s face clouded: for a moment it seemed as if not even the sacred robe of Broth er Felix could save him from vengeance; but the friar s face was so bland that the insulted one controlled his wrath. "You re an omadhaun to believe it ; sure you know they re Dutch !" Brother Felix always left the truth to itself. He did not repeat his assertion; the abbot had said it. 176 THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA "But if Rosey O Keefe only had children !" said Maginnis, meditatively. Brother Felix had been told that Professor Brachstein was the author of the well-known monograph on the Celtic element in Basque, and that the great Scherm-Weinhausen had thoroughly analyzed all the noun-prefixes in a remote Kerry dialect ; but he had forgotten this. Brachstein read old Irish, but Scherm-Wein hausen, who had spent several summers in Ire land, spoke modern Irish with a pronounced Berlinese accent. They had learned no Eng lish, as they had been informed that Boston and New York were Irish cities. They had come to America for amusement. Incidentally, they hoped to consult with an American doctor of philosophy about the advisability of founding a chair for the study of American institutions in their own university. "And do you mean to say that the Dutch 177 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS know the holy Irish speech?" Truth was plainly written on the face of Brother Felix. "Sure, it beats the world !" "And you must now go to Germany to learn Irish/ Brother Felix said, with a gleam of chastened triumph in his eyes. "That I know already." Fire came into the face of Maginnis. The friar stepped aside, for on the path from the monastery were the two savants. Herr Doctor of Philosophy Brachstein seemed to be over sixty years of age. A stiff brush of gray hair, in which his keen blue eyes were almost lost, covered his head and nearly all his face; his gray cloth sack-coat was rum pled, and his soft hat and baggy gray trousers were of the same slightly soiled tint. He swung a big oak stick and talked rapidly. Scherm-Weinhausen was about ten years younger; he wore a green Hamburg hat with THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA a feather in the black band, a white waistcoat, a dark-green sack-coat, with extremely tight trousers and yellow spats. A pointed blond beard, a wide and sympathetic smile, and heavy gold spectacles completed the aspect of a man who, in his own domestic circle, was considered a model of fashion. "Ach, then, beloved friend," Doctor Brach- stein was saying, in a deep voice that suggested cool caverns of rippling beer, "I admire the soul-myths; and if Christianity is as our own Von Schleicher says, only an invention to influ ence men who have no taste for virtue moral, yet-" Brother Felix could stand this no longer ; he made up his mind to rid the monastery of the infidels. He turned from Maginnis and ex plained him in good Hanoverian. "Ach" said Brachstein, beaming benevo lently at Maginnis, "he will take us to lodge 179 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS so? And his house is quiet, and there is a Hausmutter with little children there ; and our beer will be sent so ?" Herr Doctor Scherm-Weinhausen also beamed, and began to talk in fluent Irish as to terms. "Holy saints!" murmured Maginnis, "the creature would speak well enough if he had n t had the bad luck to have a Dutch mother." Scherm-Weinhausen was very bland; the terms suited him. No, there were no other boarders? The Frau Professorin Wetherill, whose husband he had known in Germany? Ja wohl. And the Herr Doctor Wetherill had no children, and his wife was a too fine court Dame, like the wives of the others, doubtless ? Maginnis s face became illuminated as by the passing of a great thought. "Is it a fine lady she is ?" he exclaimed in his native speech. "She can do her own washin 1 80 THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA and she has three of the most beautiful chil dren you ever set eyes on !" "That is well. I like the shrill voices of children in the house/ said Scherm-Weinhaus- en, who had six of his own; "but not in the night." "Not in the night," echoed Professor Brach- stein, solemnly, in German. "I love better mu sic in the night." "Is the Frau Doctorin Wetherill musical?" asked Scherm-Weinhausen. "She sings like an angel!" declared Ma- ginnis. "So?" exclaimed Scherm-Weinhausen, and the arrangement was complete, much to the delight of Brother Felix, who gladly guaran teed that a sufficient supply of the monastery beer should be conveyed to the Brierly spring- house twice a day. Late in the afternoon the two professors, with long and capacious pipes in their mouths, 183 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS strolled up the rocky lane which led to Brierly. The great bed of pink and crimson peonies on the ill-kept lawn delighted them; and catching the two older Maginnis children, who were playfully teaching a captive toad to jump over oak twigs, they began to romp like two big boys. Life was gemilthlich at last. Just at this time Rosalia Wetherill was in her lowest spirits. Confident in her riches, she had tried to enter a new world, and her coin, valu able as it seemed, was looked upon as counter feit. She was sure that Guy loved her; she knew that he believed that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. On the very last morning, before she had gone away from him to eat her heart in anger, he had quoted from his favorite sonnet: "You were so slow to draw the graceful shade Of tremulous eyelash which deep shadows made That from the darkness shot a star s long ray." 184 THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA She was not sure that she understood it, but she wanted to understand it; she wanted to be a part of Guy s mind, of his soul. Mere beauty she knew now, could not secure that. She re membered, with hot blushes, that one of the women at the college had pronounced her "crude." If she had not felt herself to be crude in comparison with these more cultivated wo men, she would not have gone off, in silence, irritated with him, with herself, with all things. While the women of the faculty were arrang ing competitive courses of Little Neck clams and soft-shell crabs for the Germans, she had fled to this retreat in desolation, with the word "crude" ringing in her ears. Would Guy ever come to think that word when he thought of her? She had left him before he could think it. Her first longing to return scorn for scorn had died out. If Guy had married a woman of his own set, his wife might have held her own. That masterful father of hers the last appeal 185 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS in all cases since her babyhood could not aid her in this new world. When she saw Brach- stein and Scherm-Weinhausen coming up the lane, she powdered her face lightly, encircled her waist with a new satin girdle, and went down stairs, a vision of beauty, clothed in di aphanous white. Little Mary, the youngest of the Maginnis children, wept aloud, and she re turned to comb the child s golden hair and make it presentable. Rosalia s brunette color, set off by the glow ing hair above, and illuminated by one of those soft white frocks which only women in the South understand, seem to cloud the splendor of the peonies, as, with the pretty little blue- eyed Mary by the hand, she dawned upon the vision of the Germans. They dropped the Maginnis boys, and clicked their heels to gether. Scherm-Weinhausen said nothing ; he merely blushed and, an unusual sign of emotion, took 186 THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA his pipe from his mouth. Maginnis, watering- pot in one hand and a pan of young peas in the other, stood watching the effect. "And the lovely little child-angel ! How like she is to her mother ! Ah, the gold of the hair ! She is so like!" said Scherm-Weinhausen to Maginnis. "She is," said Maginnis, relapsing into Eng lish; "she is the very spit of her." Rosalia was not unaware of the impression she had made, and her heart began to soften. They were, it is true, uncouth persons, who could not speak her language, and yet they were not without taste. She, who loved chil dren, dragged the small Maginnis boys into the house with much laughter. Scherm-Weinhausen followed her with ad miring eyes. "Ach," he said slowly, "I am homesick;" and then to Maginnis, in his own Kerry dialect : "The beautiful Frau Wetherill is a good moth- is/ THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS er; I can see that she loves her children. She is a noble mother." "True for you," answered Maginnis, forget ting, in the artistic fever of the moment, that the learned man knew no English. "She s a mother all over. Sure it do be bringin tears to my eyes to see her workin with thim chil dren. They re the apples of her eyes. She 11 not let them out of her sight. Maginnis/ she says to me one day, it J s as lonely as a lost soul I d be without me three young ones. Ma ginnis/ says she, the tears runnin down her nose, it s only three I have, but they re like the three leaves of the shamrock. And, as to her husband, he has n t much practice, because he is young, but a better doctor does n t exist." Maginnis was obliged, by the blank look on Scherm-Weinhausen s face, to translate this speech into Irish, which he did, with variations suited to the theme. Rosalia regretted that her German was so rudimentary. 1 88 THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA After supper, in which mugs of beer played a prominent part, Rosalia carried the sleepy little Mary up to bed. "Charlotte!" murmured Brachstein. "Ach, dear friend, I read the Sorrows of Werther again, as in my youth." "She made the salad of potatoes," said Scherm-Weinhausen, strophically ; "there was enough onion in it. It is so soothing with the good beer !" A week of clear days passed, each like the other; but every day the weight on Rosalia s heart grew heavier. Maginnis watched her and chuckled. On the night before the day of their depar ture, the two professors sat on the rickety porch and smoked until the moon came up and Ro salia appeared. Maginnis, puffing at a clay pipe, seated himself on the lowest step. The soft rhythm of insects, broken by the distant chant of frogs, smote the silence, and the air 189 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS was rich with the scent of honeysuckle and of heliotrope. "It is gemuthlich" said Brachstein, looking at the profile of Rosalia as she stood near the peony-bed. "There was enough onion in the potato- salad/ murmured Scherm-Weinhausen, hap pily. "It may be that the frau would something sing?" suggested Brachstein, after a long pause of comfort. Scherm-Weinhausen re peated the suggestion to Maginnis. "Whist!" said Maginnis; "she d be afraid of wakenin the children. Her mind is just of the children, day and night. If you wait awhile, maybe we 11 get her to sing The Harp that Wanst; but it s a sad song for her," added Maginnis, his artistic instinct fired by the re ceptivity of his auditors. "She is young to be sad," said Brachstein, who caught the words. "She is young so?" 190 THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA " T is the mother s heart," said Maginnis, pensively. "Ach, so!" answered the grizzled Brachstein "the mother s heart." Scherm-Weinhausen nodded responsively. "She has known sorrow, and a song is sad to her." "The children were sick," said Maginnis, in a sepulchral voice ; "and The Harp that Wanst was their favor-ite song," he added, dropping unconsciously into English. "I mean the song she sang them asleep with." Scherm-Weinhausen understood, and gave the version to Brachstein. "Like Thekla," answered Scherm-Wein hausen, through the moist waves of the helio trope scent, which even the pipe-smoke could not dissipate. "Ah, the soft heart!" "Owls!" said Rosalia to Maginnis. "Owls is no name for thim," promptly re torted Maginnis ; "they re more like bats with 191 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS smoke-stacks Dutch bats, at that." He chuckled; a week before he had written on a postal card to Wetherill : "Come home at once. Your wife needs you." Of course Wetherill would come. Of course these German owls would choose him for the place in their benighted land. Rosalia had captured them. Maginnis shook with laughter until the rickety porch trembled. And the col lege people ! They d be as mad as Cromwell was on the day he could n t hang a Limerick man! While Maginnis chuckled, Rosalia went into the drawing-room and, opening the piano made for a Mrs. Curtice in the fifties, began to sing "Violets" in the German language. "Ach, that is lovely!" said the impression able Scherm-Weinhausen, waking suddenly from a slight sleep. "The English speech is sweet!" When she had played the "Stephanie Ga- 192 THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA votte" and Mendelssohn s "Spring Song," Rosalia said good night very amiably. She went into the room of the sleeping children, and solaced herself by such maternal cares as warding off drafts and replacing coverings. "You hear her beyond?" asked Maginnis. "I hear/ said Scherm-Weinhausen. "She is sayin her prayers over the children," said Maginnis, pathetically. "The saints for give me!" he breathed piously. "The mother-soul is truly divine," said Scherm-Weinhausen. "If religion did not exist, the mother would make us invent it, as Von Schleicher says. And the salad with the onions, Maginnis, a small portion with beer would be truly getnuthlich" "Thou didst know the Herr Doctor Wether- ill?" asked Brachstein, when the "small" por tion of the delectable salad had been pro duced. "At Schleswigstein," answered Scherm- 193 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Weinhausen. "He was as a soul-brother to me." "You seldom spoke of him before," said Brachstein, between two long draughts of beer. "Ach, Himmel! no," said Scherm-Wein- hausen, artlessly; "I did not know I loved him so much until I saw his well-born wife." "Maginnis," called out Rosalia, before breakfast the eighth morning, "I would whip those boys of yours within an inch of their lives if I could. They Ve torn down all the wild grape-vines in the lane !" And, then as their father did not move, she made a dash at Thomas Francis Meagher Ma ginnis, just as he had jumped into the peony- bed, and held him fast. He was a stout boy, but Rosalia was not only strong but scien tific; and, as she manipulated Thomas, her sleeves rolled up from her beautiful arms, Brachstein, startled by the outcry, came out upon the gallery. With precision the strokes 194 i > Ach, the mother-hand !" repeated Scherm-Weinhausen THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA of Rosalia s large white hand delivered their message physiologically and psychologically. Brachstein called Scherm-Weinhausen, .and they stood in the shaking gallery in ecstasy. Rosalia s face was almost as pink as the peo nies, but she gave chase to Dominic Raymond, and the succeeding operation was even more effective. "Ach, the mother-heart!" said Brachstein. "Ach f the mother-hand!" repeated Scherm- Weinhausen. "It is a pity we must leave to day. We have been happy." After breakfast the professors packed their bags ; their trunks were already on the way to the steamer. Brachstein, looking out of his window, saw a tall, spare young man with gold- rimmed spectacles and long legs suddenly ap pear from the lane and put his arms about Ro salia, who had been narrowly examining the young grape-vines. Brachstein called to Scherm-Weinhausen to 197 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS witness the moving sight. They both sighed. "Ach," Brachstein said, "if the Herr Doctor Wetherill was not a specialist in physiological psychology, we might have suggested him for sociology at Schleswigstein." "She would be a good example for our female youth," said Scherm-Weinhausen, with a kind of divine despair ; and they watched the lovers. "Guy !" said Rosalia "oh, Guy ! I have been so lonely! But why did you come? I don t deserve it. A minute ago there seemed noth ing in life for me." Guy looked proudly down upon her. "We two, we two and what s the world ?" "Will you always think that?" "To be sure!" he said ecstatically. "If I had been more worthy, if I had been more like the others oh, Guy, I have failed you, I have failed you, and I can never be worthy of you ! I wish and I hope you 11 198 THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA understand, dear that we could get away from here." She paused for a moment, and he looked disquieted, and then she added, with the old decision that had deserted her of late : "Guy, I must go abroad I must have my chance to learn things those other women know. Why, they laughed I know they did at my German !" He did not answer in words. After a time he said, "You are foolish dear; you are too humble." She sighed and shook her head. "Later," he said. "There is no chance at present." She sighed again. "It is a blessed sight!" said Brachstein. "Let us see that the beloved children of their heart are with them at this moment." Scherm-Weinhausen nodded. He went out upon the rickety gallery, where the Maginnis children were now playing, and seized the 199 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS amazed Mary and Thomas Francis Meagher. Brachstein followed with Dominic Raymond. Maginnis, leaning on his spade in the shade of the oaks, watched this scene. Rosalia and Wetherill were in an atmosphere of all delight. Scherm-Weinhausen thrust the two children forward, while Brachstein tried to force Dom inic Raymond into WetheriU s arms. "O friend of my youth," Scherm-Wein hausen exclaimed, "I welcome thee ! And now let the children of thy heart greet thee !" "Good morning," aaid Wetherill, rather stiffly. "I did not know that you were here." And then he noticed with amazement the strug gling Maginnis infants. "Thou art fortunate in thy wife and thy children," said Brachstein. "We have been of thy household. We wished that thy children should share in thy happiness." Rosalia, who did not in the least understand, frowned slightly. 200 tr <^T THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA "Whose children ?" asked Wetherill, stunned. Maginnis came forward hastily. What had been said, he did not know; but his artistic soul whispered to him that it was time for a climax. "The buggy is waitin ," he said ; "your bags are in it. Sure, you 11 be late if you don t go." The puzzled professors dropped the children, turned, and said farewell in German. "The Herr Doctor Wetherill is mad," said Brach- stein. "He is mad," said Scherm-Weinhausen. Wetherill turned angrily to Maginnis, whose soft brown eyes, full of reproach, met his. "What does this mean, sir? Father Blod- gett has told me before this of your outra geous " "Stop, doctor," said Maginnis, meekly. "Don t say anything you may be sorry for. You are a gentleman, or I d never have lent 3 203 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS my own children to you. D ye mind that now? I ll say no more." And Maginnis walked over to the potato patch, with the halo of martyrdom over his head. " T was fine while it lasted," he said, an ar tistic glow in his soul ; "and if he s missed spoilin the Dutch and gettin his fees among the foreigners, it is not my fault. Rosalia O Keefe is only a Tip, after all. But," he re sumed, "if ever I did a good turn, even to the length of sacrificin my own innocent children, this was one may the saints forgive me! I 11 never tell anybody but Mary Ann. Och !" and he chuckled until the spade in his hands trembled. " T was fine while it lasted!" In the afternoon of this eventful day Ma ginnis, at the point of a metaphorical bayonet, was forced to make an ornate apologia. For others it would have been an embarrassing 204 THE SECLUSION OF ROSALIA confession; for him it was as the act of a martyr. "Is it ashamed of havin such fine children you d be?" he asked at last; and Guy was obliged to extenuate his own conduct. It was not until August that conscientiously written letters of explanation reached the doc tors at Schleswigstein. These learned men sat in the town concert-garden, in the cool of the evening, and talked the matter over. They were bewildered, but edified. "His well-born wife has the mother-heart," said Brachstein; "and he is worthy. I am thinking." "I have thought," said Scherm-Weinhausen. Brachstein inadvertently allowed the lid of his stein to remain up. By this token his friend knew that he was indeed thinking deeply. "Sociology is, after all, but the highest 205 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS philosophical expression of physiological psy chology," Brachstein remarked, when the band had played the overture to "Tannhauser" and a transcription based on Bach. "To write such a letter he must be ethical, and he knows the American tendencies." Scherm-Weinhausen nodded. "With such a wife, he must be ethical. We will recom mend him to the faculty so?" "It is done, then," said Brachstein, closing the lid over his beer with a click. And so it happened that Rosalia had her wish, the gods and the Irish having fought for her, as they generally fight for a lady in distress, and late in September she stood, ex pectant, timid, triumphant, on the threshold of the Inn of the Crowned Eagle, very near the famous university of- Schleswigstein, to the precincts of which her husband had recently been invited. 206 VI THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS THE deep red of the Virginia creeper, through which the mellow light of an afternoon late in the autumn glowed, was reflected on the carefully scrubbed floor of the parlor of St. Kevin s rectory. This was Father Blodgett s study and office. Magin- nis, who was again his sexton, had just brought to him a list of the pew-holders. "T is worse nor a mixed marriage!" ex claimed Maginnis, desirous that the rector should cease reading and lighten the hour with conversation. "I wonder the bishop allows it. T is a crime!" Father Blodgett raised his eyes to Magin- nis s face in an absent-minded way. 207 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Maginnis," he answered, with a note of un usual sharpness in his voice, "I Ve taken you back on your solemn promise that you d tell the truth, keep your word, and not exagger ate." Maginnis toyed with his disheveled straw hat, and sighed. Father Blodgett was moved by the sigh. Maginnis felt this, and went on : "Little Ellen Reilly she was like an angel when the Sodality played in The Lady of Lyons has made up her mind to marry John Moldonovo." Father Blodgett smiled. "Good!" he said. "She s a nice girl, and I know John to be fair and square. I m glad to hear it, Maginnis." Maginnis stood as if turned to stone; even his struggling beard seemed to grow rigid. "He s a dago," he articulated at last "dago I a spalpeen of an Eye-talian!" 208 THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS "A very respectable American of Italian descent/ said Father Blodgett; "with sound ideas on civic virtue, I find. What s the mat ter with him?" "He wants to marry Reilly s daughter, and his father, who has grown rich sellin chickens to the poor and takin the bread out of decent men s mouths, is going to run him for mayor. Of course he has n t the ghost of a show, for every Kerry man, and even the Tips, are against him ; but he 11 vote all the dagos and nagurs in town, if he does be let. When Reilly found out that the dago was waitin on little Ellen, he acted like a man beside himself. I 11 not give him up ! says little Ellen ; but I 11 wait until he s mayor of Bracton, and then I 11 be married from my father s house! It almost broke Reilly s heart to hear them words," con tinued Maginnis, not noticing that Father Blodgett was lost in the list. " If the dago 209 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS is elected, you can have him, my word on it! says Reilly; and I m a man of my word/ I 11 marry him from my father s house, or not at all, says the ungrateful girl; and she ll dis grace her family by doing it, if she can. But she can t," added Maginnis, "because honest citizens like myself are against it." "I was not listening, I beg your pardon," Father Blodgett said, laying down the list; "but I heard enough to know that you are not in perfect charity with your neighbors. You must remember that some of the most glorious martyrs, the Holy Father himself, " he for got himself in the list, "are Italians," he added, after a pause. "The saints be between me an har-r-r-um! murmured Maginnis. "And him a priest speakin like that! Sure, t is civic vartue that spoils even our natural leaders. But nary a nagur or dago shall vote, if I can prevent it. 210 THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS If," he said aloud, "you Ve nothin else for me, your reverence, I 11 go now." "Oh, Maginnis," said Father Blodgett, rais ing his head, "I am afraid of the saloons on Election day. Their influence is bad at all times; but with Bracton crowded with voters from Jamesville and the other suburbs, there will be danger of grave sins. I am told that you are very popular. Do you think that you could get up some sports outside the town to draw off the crowds? You might manage a tournament, with nothing stronger than lemon ade; a baseball game, I disapprove of foot ball, or something of that sort. I Ve been thinking this matter over. If we had a higher standard of civic virtue in the council " Father Blodgett sighed. Maginnis s face glowed. "You re right!" he exclaimed; " t is a great idea, every politician in town will have to con- 211 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS tribute. Sure, you 11 make enough to run the church for a year. Savin your presence, father," said Maginnis, with admiration in every line of his face, "I did n t think it was in you!" "You misunderstand me," said Father Blod- gett, flushing slightly. "I was not thinking of a money-making plan, but merely of one to keep the men innocently employed while they re not voting." "Glory be!" cried Maginnis. "There s some of them won t have any time for anything else," he added, under his breath. "Well," said the rector, "perhaps it is im practical. I 11 make one last effort to have the council close the saloons." "A picnic," reflected Maginnis, on his way home. "Sure, he s that innocent ! T is a good idea," and he chuckled. "Faith, we 11 give a chicken barbacue for the nagur an Eye- talian!" 212 THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS Frost had again touched the hardy wild white asters in the fields around Bracton, and the bell for vespers seemed to be muffled by the lazy autumn haze, when Mrs. Magee, her green-gloved hands tightly holding a purple- velvet prayer-book with a golden clasp, bowed coldly to Reilly the blacksmith. Reilly was standing on the street corner nearest St. Kevin s; he had just parted from her son-in- law, Maginnis. Reilly was a big, raw-boned man; his loud and dominant voice was accentuated by a pro nounced Kerry brogue. The coldness of Mrs. Magee s bow it was so slight that the red cherries in her best bonnet hardly stirred at all was due to an insult that Reilly had "offered" her when they both lived in the bishop s own city, before the hegira of so many Kerry people to Bracton. He had maliciously spread abroad the rumor that she was a "Tip" ; and even that most devoted of Kerry women, 213 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS good Sister Margaret, had believed it. It is true that Mrs. Magee s mother had been a Macgeogeghan of the County Tipperary, but it was not becoming for the likes of Reilly, whose ancestors were eating potato-skins and all in darkest Donegal, while hers on the pater nal side were respected citizens of Tralee, with lushings and leavings of pig s head, greens, and tea galore. This was her thought hers, like all great minds, was given to melancholy as she passed Maria Moldonovo, wife to that Giuseppe Mol- donovo whose success with the chicken-farms outside of Bracton was the theme of much dis cussion. Maria, a matron of over fifty, was on her way to vespers. Of late she had dis carded her long gold earrings and the blue shawl for her head, and achieved a crimson hat bearing a magenta plume, and a mauve gown which made her swarthy complexion seem almost chocolate-colored. Mrs. Magee gave 214 THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS Maria a very cold nod, too, though it was Sunday, and she believed herself to be at peace with the whole world. "Sure," Mrs. Magee murmured, "the Mol- donovo creature would look a deal better with a crazy-quilt on her head, like that ould hag Giulio." Julia Giulio, her head adorned with a red and yellow shawl, and her big gold and blue enamel earrings flashing in the afternoon sun light, entered the vestibule of the church, first meekly dipping her right forefinger into the holy-water font, and politely offering the sacred drops to Mrs. Magee, who, with a look of in tense disapprobation, plunged her hand full in to the lustral fluid, and, making the sign of the cross with the independence of proprietorship and the ease of super-civilization, sprinkled sparkling rain right and left. She piously doused the scarlet poppies in little Ellen Reilly s new hat, and for the moment closed the left 215 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS eye of John Moldonovo, who followed in the wake of the attractive Ellen. "Little Ellen will marry the dago yet," re flected Herself, with bitter satisfaction, as she fumbled in her capacious bag for her beads; "and a girl that will do that will do anything, and it s her father, sure, that called me a Tip!" The stately current of her thoughts was turned awry by the appearance of her son-in- law moving through the open space within the sanctuary rails, and carrying an incense-boat. She looked scornfully under her eyelids at Ma- ginnis s cuffs, which projected elegantly below the sleeves of his official frock-coat. " T would be like him to send his shirts to the Chinee!" she groaned mentally, for her laundry business was dear to her heart. "Mary Ann could never put that pagan gloss which is mostly poison on his cuffs like that." Little Ellen Reilly s eyes were red, for there 216 THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS had been a scene at home. She inclined her head gracefully as John Moldonovo opened the pew door for her, and then became intent on her prayers. Maria Moldonovo, observing all this, cast a. look of triumph at Julia Giulio, whose eldest daughter was once before John went to the law school in Washington sup posed to have designs on him. But the Giulios were Sicilians, and the Moldonovos Genoese. The elder Moldonovo had almost had an ap oplexy when his son escorted Teresita Giulio from a church concert. "San Antonio!" Moldonovo had cried; "the Sicilians are brigands; they care not for edu cation! And the Giulios !" He was usually a quiet man, but he seemed to tear the stars from heaven and crush them between his hands to powder. John went to the law school, and when he came home he saw little Ellen Reilly as Pauline in "The Lady of Lyons." It was enough. 217 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS John was brown-haired, black-eyed, tall and slender, not quick at all, and by no means of the usual Italian, type. He met Reilly s burst of wrath, when he called on little Ellen, with polite self-respect. Ellen was blond, ex quisitely graceful, well dressed, and "accom plished/ She had taken the medal for "vocal" at St. Rose s Academy, and she taught the five- finger exercises and other melodious passages to a half score of young Bractonites. It was John Moldonovo s opinion that par ents had nothing to do with marriages. His father s real-estate operations paid him good commissions, and he had suggested immediate matrimony ; but no ! little Ellen was bent on no maimed rites : there must be a reception at her father s house. Just before little Ellen had started for vespers, Reilly had uttered sarcastic comments about John. "With his waxed mustache," cried Reilly, "and his-patent leather shoes ! And is it mayor 218 "Faith, when he s Mayor of Bracton, you can have him" THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS of Bracton he s trying for ? The whipper- snapper ! He s the laughing-stock of every man in Bracton that hates the foreigners. Faith, when he s mayor of Bracton, you can have him!" Reilly roared until the house seemed to shake with sarcastic mirth. Little Ellen s eyes flashed. "If mother were alive you would n t treat me this way, father; but I 11 keep my word, if you 11 keep yours. I 11 not be married ex cept from your house and the house that mother worked for when she lived," little Ellen said, a break coming into her voice. She was thinking of all this as she bent her head while the organ rolled and vespers began at St. Kevin s. John Moldonovo, watching her gradually lose herself in prayer, turned over in his mind schemes for blasting the hopes of his adver saries, very ineffectually, he admitted, as he 14 221 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS awoke from his dreams and the chorus of voices in the organ gallery finished the last "Gloria." Mrs. Magee, observing that Maginnis joined Reilly on the street corner, took the trolley-car going toward Brierly for a hasty visit to her daughter Mary Ann. Little Ellen Reilly, dis missing John Moldonovo at the church door, hastened to join her. Little Ellen felt that prayer had inspired her. Mrs. Magee was rather haughty in her manner toward little Ellen at first; but, as they were the only occupants of the car, the small blond maiden soon found an opportunity to pour her tale into Mrs. Magee s ear, which heard with delight that there might be a chance of circumventing her traducer, the same Reilly. Before the pair reached the road that led to Brierly lane, Mrs. Magee had de termined to throw away all racial prejudices and help to marry Reilly s daughter to a dago, if she could. 222 THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS When, on her return, little Ellen dropped from the car at the corner of the street in which her father lived, John Moldonovo was waiting for her. "Little Rose!" he said, with a soft cadence which alien influences were driving from his speech "little Rose ! a time will come when I shall not sneak to your father s door; let us make it now. We can marry at once." "No," said little Ellen, firmly, though her hand upon his arm trembled. "People would think you were afraid of the result of the elec tion. Father has dared you to win the election and marry me at the same time. Father is a natural politician, and he s got Maginnis with him. It will be hard ; but we 11 have to beat him first then I 11 forgive him. Mary Ann Maginnis is with us. I Ve won her over, and if you can gain over a man s wife" you. ve won half the battle." "I believe it," said John Moldonovo, looking 223 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS at Ellen and the moonlight at the same time, and roused to enthusiasm by both. "We must win/ said Ellen, giving her little, white-gloved hand to Moldonovo. "It will be a fair fight." And she raised her head proudly in the American fashion. The street door half opened and a roar of barbaric laughter came out. "It will be a fair fight, little Ellen, and let the best man win!" said Reilly s voice. "There are times," Maginnis remarked when he had settled himself in the glowing kitchen of Brierly before a pile of buttered toast, "when principle is everything. I know just how Reilly feels, as if t was my own child that s marryin beneath her." "As if Reilly s child could marry beneath her!" said Mary Ann, fanning herself with her apron, * for she had been making the toast. "And him calling my own mother out of her 224 THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS name!" Mary Ann added, thinking of the re cent conversation with that lady. "True for you !" said Maginnis, helping him self to another slice of toast, and closing the eye farthest from Mary Ann. "It s not Reilly s feelin s I m thinkin of, for I can t afford to let my heart go into politics, but it s of the party that has stud for liberty, so that a time has come when Brian Boru him self would n t be ashamed to serve as President of the United States. It has come to this, and I prophesy," continued Maginnis, raising his hand to heaven, "that some jintlemen at Wash ington will be replaced by real men who won t waste all their time on American affairs, but give a helpin hand to prostrate Ireland." "Principle!" broke in Mary Ann, "what s principle to do with politics ?" Maginnis lowered his voice to a whisper. "T is well, Mary Ann," he said, "that you ve sent the childer to bed. I would n t have them 225 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS hear such words from their mother for the wide world. Daniel O Connell himself would n t blush to find himself on the same ticket as Joseph O Keefe, said Reilly to me to-day. What s behind that but principle ?" Maginnis saw by Mary Ann s look that she was not sympathetic. "She s growin like Herself!" he thought. "You want me to go against Reilly, I see, Mary Ann; but my honor is pledged. Sure, changin my party princi ples would be like changin my religion. T is an apostate I d be. I d be little better than a souper. Mary Ann Mary Ann," he said, throwing as much pathos into his voice as he could with his mouth full, "is it destroyin my honor you d be ?" "You re very firm, Maginnis," said Mary Ann. "I m a rock," said Maginnis. "Reilly met me goin to vespers, and gave me the Kerry Sentinel. T was like bein at home again, 226 ; Is it destroy-in my honor you d be? " THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS to see all the Tralee names in its col-umns. You 11 take the nagurs and the dagos for a picnic out to Moldonovo s chicken-farm in the afternoon/ says he. "T will be a bit of recre ation for our people, as you said/ and he winked ; and we 11 carry everything for O Keefe/ In the interest of civic vartue. says I. There s danger/ says he. How? says I. Sure, we ve never had anny opposi tion before. This time/ says he, the Eye-tal- ians will vote with the nagurs for Moldonovo. If there s a political menace to the country/ says he, "t is the dago. The nagurs can be managed/ says he, by strategy/ says he, and they never had a chance here to be destructive to the ballot/ says he. Do you think you can get them out of the way until the polls close? I can/ says I I can. And you 11 call it a chicken barbacue/ says he, laughin . And I split my sides, Mary Ann. In a few days there won t be a colored man, woman, or child that 229 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS won t know there s to be a chicken barbacue at Moldonovo s farm. The dagos will all be in Br acton to vote at noon. The trolley-cars will be runnin out, five minutes apart, until one o clock O Keefe s vice-president of the com pany but at one o clock the power will give out, and there 11 be no cars comin back till after the polls close. Moldonovo is to give a big meal to the dagos at twelve o clock before they vote; but just as they re sittin down to their macaroni and red ink they 11 hear that the nagurs are among the chickens, and off they 11 go by the first trolley and divil a wan will go back ! There 11 be a beggarly vote for Moldo novo." Maginnis uttered an arpeggio of chuckles, but Mary Ann did not respond. "Maginnis," she said, "you Ve no heart. You re all principle." "I am," said Maginnis, with a look modeled on the smoked picture of Byron s "Corsair" over the fireplace, "when my honor s engaged. 230 1 8- o THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS Father Blodgett gev me a great song-and-dance yesterday about honor." "Little Ellen was here, as pale as a ghost," said Mary Ann, folding up her apron and giv ing Maginnis his pipe. " Maginnis/ says she, has a heart, a noble heart, but he s my father s slave/ " "She said that?" asked Maginnis, in a trucu lent voice. " I m a free-born American/ said she, and I 11 marry the man of my choice, as you mar ried the man of yours, Mrs. Maginnis/ said she. T is John Moldonovo/ said she, flushing like a piny; he s as good as I am, and I ll not be married to him from a hole and corner ; but it s a reception I 11 be having in my father s new house after the ceremony at high noon at St. Kevin s . And she began to cry until all the childer bawled out loud for company. I know that Maginnis has great influence/ little Ellen went on, when I d given her a drink of water, 233 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS and I said so to father. Maginnis, said he Maginnis why, he s only a straw man in my hands/ I 11 appeal to Mary Ann, the poor child said. Ts it his wife? said Reilly, with a blood-curdling laugh ; why, he s no heart ! A word from me would go a dozen times further than a hundred from her ; he s bound hand and foot to the party. " "Ah-a !" murmured Maginnis, forgetting his frown. "He said that!" " To hear such things about Maginnis, said little Ellen, pathetic-like, almost turns me against marriage; for to me your husband has always been a model. But, said she, I reckon he has feet of clay, like the rest of them, and she sighed fit to break a heart already bursting. If Maginnis is what father says he is, I 11 die an old maid, said she, with the tears on her cheeks." "She said that, did she?" asked Maginnis, puffing out his chest. 234 THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS "Something very like it. And here you re making a trap to defeat John Moldonovo, who s a thousand times better than that clay- pipe Reilly. You Ve no heart, Maginnis ; and it s sorry I am that I ever left my poor mother to the cold winds of the world." "Whisper, Mary Ann, whisper!" Maginnis began ; "my honor s at stake the honor of a Maginnis." Mary Ann would not listen. "You re a slave, Maginnis !" she exclaimed, leaving the kitchen with a rustle of her Sunday silk gown that added dignity to an effective exit. Maginnis reflected, and the more he re flected the more anger he felt against Reilly. "What is he, to be comin between man and wife?" he asked. "I 11 never go back on my word t was never heard that a Kerry man would do it but Reilly will see that Maginnis has a heart. Mary Ann! Mary Ann!" he called. 237 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Mary Ann was silent; and silence was the one thing in life, above all others, that Magin- nis could the least endure. Mary Ann, for the three days before the election, went about her work "like a dyin pic ture," Maginnis remarked. "I don t blame you," she said several times. "You re not better than other men." And she regretted in plaintive tones that she had ever left a mother with a heart ! "Herself!" Maginnis thought, gnashing his teeth mentally. "Herself such is the delu sion of female minds ; but we have to live with them," he added sadly, "and the easiest way s the best." On Election day the O Keefe faction in Bracton rejoiced. Reilly was in high spirits, and the betting was heavily against John Mol- donovo. Little Ellen stayed at home : she had not sufficient poise to give her music-lessons. The day was crisp and frosty. All the red 238 THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS was not gone from the maples, and the air of Bracton was full of the aromatic scent of burn ing leaves. O Keefe, an expert manager of his own campaign, went out in three trolley- cars, with a brass band, to bring in trium phantly the voters from the outlying suburb of Killarney; and Reilly, absolutely confident in Maginnis s promise that he would engage the opposition at Moldonovo s farm, had gone to work the other suburb of Jamesville, where there was a Donegal colony with very delicate feelings. As soon as O Keefe and Reilly had depart ed and this was about nine o clock the Gen oese and some of the Sicilians, as well as groups of colored folk, began to come into town earlier than Reilly expected. The col ored folk, under the guidance of Maginnis, de parted, to the music of a brass band, before eleven. The Italians remained. Among them were a number of Sicilian tenant-farmers in 239 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS the suburbs, disliked heartily by the Genoese and despised by all other whites because they hired out to negroes. As they were about to sit down in Giuseppe Moldonovo s warehouse to macaroni and red wine, one of Maginnis s acolytes gave the alarm: "The nagurs are stealin the chickens!" Off flew the Genoese, with wrathful eyes and empty stomachs, to the waiting trolley- cars. Reilly, arriving at this moment with his group of reluctant voters, bent almost double with laughter. "Maginnis," he said, "you re a broth of a boy !" And he slapped him on the back. "My honor is sacred," said Maginnis, with dignity ; "and you 11 find, Reilly, that my heart s in the right place." "Maginnis!" exclaimed Reilly, whose face, from frequent and early libations, was as red as his crimson necktie, "I owe it all to you that little Ellen hasn t made worse nor a mixed 240 THE HONOR OF MAGINNIS marriage! And if the place of city clerk was n t promised to another man, you should have it!" "I m keepin my word, that s all," said Ma- ginnis. "I promised Father Blodgett I d stick to the truth, and I Ve done it. The da gos and the nagurs are havin their picnic, and they can t get back to town before the polls close and they don t need to." At eight o clock Reilly drove out in a buggy to Brierly, where Maginnis was quietly eating his supper. Reilly could hardly speak; he waved away the chair Mary Ann offered him. "Maginnis," he said, "do you know the vote?" "How should I?" asked Maginnis, inno cently; "I ve been in the bosom of my family for an hour." "Moldonovo s elected by a majority of twen ty-six!" "Glory be !" began Maginnis. " T was a 241 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS close shave. Them dirty Sicilians did n t vote, after all ! It should have been more." "What did you do with the dagos and na- gurs ?" wailed Reilly. "I m disgraced ! What did you do with them?" "Voted them before they left Bracton airly," said Maginnis. "Sure, I kept my word ; I gave them a picnic." "You ve disgraced me !" said Reilly. "I kept my word," said Maginnis ; "and Fa ther Blodgett will see now that I am all in for civic vartue. Besides, Reilly whisper ! I Ve pleased Mary Ann and Herself. The wo men," he added, lowering his voice still further, "are a saycret society, and we 11 be on the out side, no matter what we do ; but, Reilly, we ve got to live with them." Reilly bowed his head. In his mind s eye he saw little Ellen walking down the steps of St. Kevin s with a dago. 242 VII THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE BRACTON, from the point of view of the theatrical agent, was a "minstrel town." The only form of amusement, however, that actually succeeded there was the circus. An optimistic professor from Collamore Col lege had attempted a series of popular, elevat ing lectures, "New Lights on Napoleon," but Maginnis, who received a dollar for "usher ing," was the only male person present except the lecturer. The professor waited twenty minutes, encouraged by Maginnis, with the hope that "another lady" was coming but the moving figure down the road proved to be a cow. Colonel Grayson s daughter Blanche be- 15 243 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS lieved that if the people of Bracton could be met on their ground, they might be elevated. She was still at the new convent in Bracton, the prioress of which was Mother Juliet and the portress that Sister Margaret who had saved the soul of Sexton Maginnis. She was en gaged in graduate courses in the philosophy of poetry (Professor MacNiall of Collamore Col lege, three hours a week), and music (Sister Viola, sixteen hours a week, with a metronome and soundless clavier). Colonel Grayson, a Maryland gentleman of the old school, who had served in the Confed erate Army at a tender age, and afterwards in the Papal Zouaves, was the only summer board er at the Curtice Place, where Mary Ann Ma ginnis was chatelaine. He was waiting until Blanche finished her education, to take up his residence in the Bishop s town. Blanche Grayson held that if you approached the Italians of Bracton from the luminous Ital- 244 THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE ian past, and also appealed to the pride of the Irish inhabitants, you could attract them to high-class lectures. Mrs. Magee whom Blanche occasionally consulted on the subject of the washing of lace shirt waists, agreed with her, and that she was the person to do this. "My heart s with any girl that shows that she don t have to marry," said Mrs. Magee, with tears in her eyes. "Look at my own Mary Ann married to that tyrant Maginnis !" And then Blanche explained her plan to Mrs. Magee, over the counter of the Olympia Laun dry, while the little lay Sister went off for a few minutes to the photographer s. The news of Blanche s plan reached Magin nis that day, and in the evening he spoke of it to his wife. "Tis so," said Mary Ann; "I didn t know whether it was the truth or the mint julep when the Colonel told me this morning. It s 245 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS a career she wants, and not Benny Gore, who has been waiting on her for two years. When she was boarding here last summer, I knew he was coming every time I heard somebody sing ing the old song, Said the Rose/ and she seemed to like him well enough then. But," said Mary Ann, with a sigh, "when a woman marries, it s her career she must give up. Not that I m complaining. It s a blow to the old Colonel that she won t marry the son of a man that saved his life four times t was once when I first heard the story while he was showing the Virginians how to fight and laughing at the Yankees for knowing no better than to let him beat them. T was he and the Maryland troops did everything. Miss Grayson gave my moth er a lot of the tickets for her lecture/ said Mary Ann, "they re to be sold at the Olympia Laundry. And the mother says she s right, for if she had another daughter, she d not let her marry ; and, if she did marry, t would be 246 THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE only to a man that would take the pledge," con tinued Mary Ann, innocently. "And so Herself is against young Gore?" said Maginnis, letting his pipe go out. "He s a likely boy, frank and hearty. He s been pro moted to be first chemist at O Keefe s. He s been after her ever since she played through a whole dictionary of music at one sittin at the Sisters commencement two years ago. So Herself s against him ! My heart goes out to a boy that s in love with a pretty girl as I am, Mary Ann. I hear that the ould Colonel says he d as lieve have his daughter disgrace herself by takin to the theatre as to a career/ said Maginnis, with sentiment. " T is no wonder a little young mint is too much for him." "I don t deny it s hard on him," agreed Mary Ann. "She s to sing and play for the Sisters at the May concert for the last time." "As an amachewer," said Maginnis, nodding his head; "and I hear the holy Sisthers won t 247 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS believe she s capable of professionalism ; but they re not sure." "The Colonel went on his knees to her, he told me," said Mary Ann. " You re descend ed from the third Lord Baltimore/ says he. No female of our family has ever brought us to shame by earning money in public/ says he. It s a blot on the name of Grayson/ says he, for the like of you to go into the temptations of the public theater when you Ve a father to sup port you and a good husband, the last of the Gores, a-waitin for you. A woman/ says the old omadhaun, ought never to talk except in her own house, and mighty little then. There is n t/ says he, another family of our standing in Maryland that won t look down on us, and there are some folks on the Eastern Shore/ says he, that are kin to your mother s family, who 11 crow to see the name dragged in the mud/ says he." Mary Ann hesitated, and added : "Her- 248 THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE self says that Blanche was going to ask you to help her, though/ "Herself advised her not to, I suppose," said Maginnis, sadly. "We 11 see. I m for senti ment against a career every time," he added with unction. Blanche s education, however, was, to the Colonel, extremely unsatisfactory. "Philoso phy of Poetry!" he said bitterly. "How is Blanche ever goin to marry a gentleman that respects himself, if she knows more than he does? My Lord," he solemnly added to the Bishop he was most careful to observe all forms, and it was a lesson in deportment to see him backing out of a room before a church dig nitary "If I had sent her to a poor white-trash school, where they believe in female clubs, she could n t be more of a New Woman. She wants to lecture for a livin , and I reckon no power on earth will stop her. And Benny 249 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Gore, by gad ! the finest gentleman in Maryland, just waitin to kiss the tracks that little girl of mine makes in the grass ! And the worst of it is," concluded the Colonel, "that the nuns don t take the view of education they used to. A fe male needs the gentler arts, not economics and fol-de-rols of that sort." Occasionally the Colonel paid a formal visit to the convent. He was grizzled, red, thin, and aquiline, and one day when, chivalrous, though fierce-looking, he was affrighting the circle of Sisters gathered in the parlor with stories of the prowess of the Marylanders in the war and of his own prowess at the Porta Pia, the Bishop, coming to make his call, named him "Cyrano de Bergerac." It was on this day that the Col onel, clinging to the Bishop, begged him to in terfere to save Blanche from a career. And the Bishop had laughed, and recommended Ma- ginnis as "the Mercury of these parts." The Colonel sighed, and broke forth in denuncia- 250 THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE tions of the New Woman and the New South that were almost as lyrical as anything Cyrano could have done. On the day of the May concert at the con vent, the great function of the year, the Colonel called early, to offer his services. There was a load on his mind. Blanche was obdurate, the Bishop indifferent, the Sisters sympathetic, and Sexton Maginnis uncertain. The Colonel had resolved to leave the city for a week, that he might not be forced to hear of the descent of Blanche. Sister Margaret, the portress, ad mitted him to the trim parlor, and he was very courteous. Although not of this world, Sister Margaret had a keen eye for the "grand man ner." "He s a fine figure of a man," she said to herself as she placed Milner s "End of Contro versy" on the marble-topped table, that he might edify himself for a while, "and he d make a great bishop, only, sure, he could n t af- 251 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS ford to have such good manners then; that would be spoiling the people entirely. The rev erend mother/ she said aloud, "will be here in a moment, Colonel, and your daughter, too ; but you can t see her long, for she s on the pro gram early and late in the concert-room be yond." As the Colonel sighed, there was perfume of young mint to put it delicately in the air. Going out, Sister Margaret met the delicate, black-eyed Sister Viola in the vestibule. "Oh, Sister Margaret," she said anxiously, "has the boy brought the piano parts of the Pilgrims Chorus yet?" She caught sight of the roll, and darted at it with the rapidity of a swallow. A square piece of card-board on the little stand fell to the ground, and before she could pick it up, the Colonel, who had observed her from the parlor, stepped forward, with a low bow, and lifted it. 252 There s no use of my waiting to see Mother Juliet now" THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE The printed side was upward, and he read al most unconsciously, "Bracton Town Hall, May 28, 1902, at eight o clock. Lecture : The Domination of the Celt in Literature. by An Ex-Pupil of the Convent of the Seraphim, Tickets, fifty cents, admitting two." He dropped the odious thing upon the table. "Well, it s no use," he said; "there s no use of my waiting to see Mother Juliet now; that frantic daughter of mine has determined to ruin the family name. Present my regards to the reverend mother, and please say that I have left the city more in sorrow than in anger." And he bowed himself out. "Dear me!" said Sister Viola, sniffing. "I m 255 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS afraid the Colonel I hope none of the visitors will notice the odor." Sister Margaret looked sadly at Sister Viola, whom she respected only as an academic per son. "If you were a married woman, faith/ she said, "you d know better than to find fault with a real gentleman for taking a drop in modera tion. It s well that you re not in the world, Sister. Sure," she added to herself, "it s little humanity these learned Sisters have in their hearts at all ; but perhaps it s the country. In Kerry it s small respect we have for the man so weak in the head that he can t take his drop at the right time." Sister Viola looked horrified, and hastened away from the obnoxious scent, with her pre cious roll in her hand, to hear Blanche conquer the last five bars in the "Shower of Pearls," which was to follow her chef d auvre, the "Bal lade in A Flat Major." After this Sister Vi- 256 THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE ola, distracted and more swallow-like than ever, tried to induce the quartette to let Blanche fin ish her solo, "Said the Rose/ and not begin "Maryland, my Maryland" six bars ahead of time. As the quartette, composed of small girls, always strayed from the key as soon as Sister Viola ceased to look at them, she had lit tle time to give to the second violin, whose left slipper was a bad fit, or to discover whether the smallest Capillo child, who was to perform in an arrangement of "Listen to the Mocking- Bird" (for six hands, which were nearly all thumbs), had really swallowed a fly or not. Then Marie McGucken, who was to scatter bril liant arpeggios from the harp, broke two strings of that capricious instrument. At last, during a respite of half an hour be fore even the earliest guest should arrive, Sis ter Viola, pale, exhausted, anxious about more things than the industrious Martha ever dreamed of, propped herself against her em- 257 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS broidered pillows the gifts of beloved and ab sent pupils on the sofa in her music-room. Blanche Grayson adjusted herself on the piano stool. She was a slender girl, not very tall, with a varying rose tint in her face, a dimple in her left cheek, and the air of a fawn that had just settled a vexed question. As a "post graduate," she was permitted to wear a train, which was of soft white stuff that did not rus tle ; a few spangles scattered on the bertha were likewise, allowed her because of her eminence. Her wide-open dark-gray eyes, which were vio let when they were not so wide open, were fixed on Sister Viola s ivory-toned face. "Perhaps/ Blanche said reflectively, "if I were a Virginia girl, and had been engaged a great many times, I should find it easier to give up Benny Gore. Oh, Sister, do not imagine you, who know me so well that I have not suffered in choosing between him and my ca reer I may say, my vocation." 258 THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE Sister Viola was thinking of the harp- strings, and she made a mechanical sign of as sent. "I have settled it my own way; forgive me, Sister, for not accepting the path of the shel tered life." "Bessie Hinkson is always flat in the Mel ody in F, " murmured Sister Viola, permitting Blanche to clasp her right hand, "I must look after her E string." "Listen," said Blanche, emphatically, "I have found my metier under the influence of Professor MacNiall s lectures. I have traced the influence of the Celt on our literature, and I am going to expose with the assistance of Professor MacNiall s notes the fallacies of the Anglo-Saxon. I shall speak at the Bracton Town Hall on the twenty-eighth. I shall do some good. It s a popular view; it s ideal." "Not in public, Blanche, surely!" exclaimed Sister Viola, awakening. 259 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Why not? And, you know, Bracton is not so public ; it s a little place. And of course it s not a center of culture, like Richmond or Baltimore ; but I Ve friends there, and I shall make it all very simple, at the same time phil osophical. It will be what Professor Mac- Niall calls haute vulgarization. If I get good notices in the local papers, it will help me. Mrs. Magee dear, motherly woman is to assist with the tickets. And " Blanche reddened "that hateful Benny Gore dared me to do it." "Oh, Blanche, what will Mother Juliet say?" "She knows," said Blanche; "and she was awfully medieval about it, and then she said she hoped I would n t catch cold, and was glad that I am going to stay with such kind-hearted people as the Maginnises. As to father," ex claimed Blanche, "he 11 come around all right when the press rings with my fame, and I earn 260 THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE some money. I m sick of being only part of a dead family; I m tired of being descended from the third Lord Baltimore I wonder how my ancestors managed to skip the fourth. Perhaps, if I had n t heard so much of father s family, I might want to have one of my own." "Blanche!" Blanche tightened her lips. "If you went in for music, it might be dif ferent," said Sister Viola ; "but I think you re very foolish to give up a good young man, like Mr. Gore, for the lecture-field, as I Ve heard you call it. If a girl has n t a vocation, she ought to marry there s that Bessie Hinkson flat again!" Sister Viola murmured, as a wail rent the air. "A great consolation in convent- school life," added Sister Viola, with a mo ment s gentle bitterness, "is that the stupid girls you have to teach are no kin to you. Don t be silly, Blanche. Marry, as you can t 16 261 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS be a nun. I hear that Mr. Gore does n t drink, and Sister Margaret says oh, there s that E string again ! I must go !" Left alone, Blanche drew herself to her full height, and kicked out her train. "I wonder if Benny Gore will come to the concert/ she thought. "The first time he saw me I sang, Said the Rose/ She hummed: " I am weary of the Garden/ Said the Rose; For the winter winds are sighing. " She stopped, feeling very unphilosophical for a moment. "Loin du Bal" sounded finally from one of the piano closets, interrupted by a bell which called all the performers to the ante room adjoining the place of the concert. There clouds of white muslin and blue ribbons awaited the beginning of the overture to "Semiramide" (for four pianos). The rustle of programs and the swishing of petticoats 262 THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE told that unseen auditors were arriving in large numbers. Sister Viola, loved by the school, and not at all feared, was welcomed with subdued applause. Every girl drew on her gloves at once, the pianists allowing theirs to dangle elegantly from their wrists. Judith Silberstein, who was to "do" Chopin, sola, hastily hid a pair of jingling bracelets under her sleeves, visible jewelry being forbid den. "Sister," whispered Blanche, tremulously, "I m afraid I can t go on. It s my last ap pearance in a May concert, and if he should be here" Blanche knew very well that she was the "star" of the occasion. Sister Viola sup pressed an impatient speech. Judith Silber stein had heard the whisper. She was not to be outdone ; to be sure, she could have no train or spangles, but she had talent, and her moth er s bracelets in her bosom. 263 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Oh, Sister Viola," she pleaded, "I must be likewise excused. I have flutterings in my heart that I never before have had. It is im possible that I should play that rhapsodic impossible !" Sister Viola s own heart fluttered. Must the concert, the great event each year in the annals of the convent, fail this time ? "What it is, Nanita?" she asked in a dull voice. Nanita Valdez, who, as the smallest girl in the school and a Brazilian, was to dance a ca- chuca even in the presence of the Bishop tripped up to the unhappy Sister. "My castanets do not click well/ said Na nita, who looked like a yellow tulle butterfly; "besides, my heart goes just like Judith s. We little girls have just as much right to heart beats as the big ones, Sister." A tall girl, with a golden pompadour, disen gaged herself from the quartette. 264 THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE "If Bessie Hinkson is going to stand before me when I sing my phrase, I m afraid " Sister Viola clasped the beads of her rosary; there was a clapping of hands in the hall; the Bishop had arrived; life became a blank to her. "Young ladies," said the gentle voice of Mother Juliet from the doorway, "you are all, I know everyone of you desirous to do well ; so please kneel down and make an aspiration." Slowly, like falling snowflakes on a windless day, the clouds of fluffy white touched the pol ished floor, even the lustrous-eyed Judith Sil- berstein bowing her head most devoutly. The bell rang, and out upon the stage filed the pian ists of the first number, with Blanche at their head. She surveyed the auditors, wondering how she would face her listeners on the twen ty-eighth. Yes, there was Maginnis, usher ing late-comers into their seats. She must see him after the concert; but that hateful Benny Gore was nowhere visible! 267 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS The crash of the overture rang out /Sister Viola s color came back; she looked gratefully at Mother Juliet. "Sister Viola," said the Prioress, gently, "when you feel like boxing a woman s ears, and you can t, always appeal to her religion." Maginnis did many "chores," as he phrased it, for the convent, and Blanche Grayson knew that he would probably await orders in the par lor, after the concert was over. She found him there, as she expected, hat in hand, the picture of guilelessness and good humor. She took the proof of the announcement of her lec ture from the vestibule table and showed it to him. "I m of age, you know," she began, fearing that he would hesitate to help her. "Sure, you don t look it!" said Maginnis, gallantly. Blanche drew herself up indignantly. 268 THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE "Mr. Maginnis," she said, "you see that I am going to enter the lecture-field." "I do," said Maginnis. "And I Ve hired the hall in Bracton, because it is near, and I can go right home to your house after the lecture. And I want you to assist me every way!" "I will/ said Maginnis ; and then he looked down at the wild azalea in his buttonhole, and seemed to think. "Please take this proof to the printer s, and tell him that it s all right." Maginnis took the placard, the one her father had seen in the vestibule, and looked at the legend boldly printed upon it. "Sure," he said, after a pause, "I thought you had a beau and let me say, Miss Gray- son, that there s nothing in theatricals for the likes of you. T was his reverence Father Blodgett himself that I heard sayin that the 269 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS strongest of us would be timpted by the she- ductions of the thea^ter, if we got mixed up with thim. If I were the holy Sisthers, beg- gin their pardon, I d counsel you to take Mr. Gore, the likely boy he is, if he 11 have you." "Have me!" Blanche exclaimed, reddening to the roots of her carefully parted hair. She remembered that she must preserve her dig nity. "Mr. Gore is nothing to me. When he heard of my lecture, he asked Mrs. Magee, if I was going to do the escaped-nun racket/ It s vulgar." "So Herself s in it !" said Maginnis. He grinned; then, as he repeated Benny Gore s obnoxious phrase, a light broke upon him, and he chuckled hoarsely. Blanche Grayson was certainly a very pretty and simple girl. Finola, the "twin" might be like her some day; the twin should not waste herself on a career, if he could prevent it. 270 " So Herself s in it ! " said Magiimis THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE "You will do what you can to fill the hall, Mr. Maginnis?" "1 11 fill the hall," said Maginnis. "Every Kerry man in town will be there." "You 11 put up the posters, and sell the tickets you have great influence " "I ll fill the hall; there ll not be standin room, and Mary Ann will go with you, and look after you." "Oh, thank you so much! As to the money " "Never mind that," said Maginnis, with a magnificent wave of his hand; "I 11 come out square." At this moment Sister Viola entered the par lor in search of Blanche, and Maginnis said a respectful good-by. Twilight had fallen when Maginnis reached the printing office to which all Bracton sent its job work. It was closed, but he went over to Benny Gore s boarding-house and borrowed 273 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS his lead pencil. Then he made certain changes in Miss Grayson s announcement of her lecture. "I 11 riot tell the boy till after it s done/ he said; " t is betther to leave him the little peace of mind he has." He thrust the placard under the printer s door, with the corrections carefully marked. On his way, he had to lean against several fences, and his roars of laughter, as he en tered the lane; that led to his home at the Curtice Place, almost awakened Finn and Finola. Benny Gore began to cheer up on the day before the lecture. This was the day on which the posters were carefully nailed on vacant fences, and on the big tree in front of Father Blodgett s rectory. "Poor, misguided creature, whoever she is," said Father Blodgett, taking the placard down, "if she only dreamed of the passions she may arouse in this peaceful community, she might 274 THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE pause in her career for gain. Maginnis, see that our people keep away ; I m sorry it is too late to tell them so from the altar. Let there be no disturbance; the poor thing is, after all, a woman." Maginnis promised gently and sweetly to see that there should be no disturbance. "But," he said, "I wish, Father, you ? d keep an eye on Herself. It s mighty queer of her to be sellin tickets and tryin to get everybody to go to the lecture. And it against her own people! There are women, as well as men," he added, "that would be the better for the pledge." Father Blodgett sighed. "She was such a worthy woman," he said. "Drink is a curse." "Right you are, your Reverence," said Ma ginnis, virtuously. "It s not me, though, that would say a word against Herself." On the night of the twenty-eighth of May, Colonel Grayson came back to Bracton just 275 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS in time to see crowds of men entering the town hall. He could not keep away, though he felt that his name was to be disgraced, and, in his heart, he was proud of the little girl s pluck. He observed that there was a carriage in the side street, and that Benny Gore, in a long, light rain-coat, with his inseparable brier-wood pipe between his lips, was loitering there. The Colonel joined him, and shook hands. They walked up and down the narrow pavement, accompanied only by tobacco smoke and the scent of young mint when the Colonel breathed hard in his sorrow. In a clear tenor voice, Benny tried once or twice the old tune, "Said the Rose:" "And she fixed me in her bosom, Like a star, And I flashed there all the morning, Jasmine, honeysuckle scorning, Parasites forever fawning, That they are!" 276 THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE "You seem mighty cheerful/ said the Colonel. "I reckon I am," said Benny. Blanche heard the carol, and her heart began to thump. She stood under the hoop of gas lights that illuminated the bleak Bracton hall, the only ornament of which was a big, rusty, cylinder-stove. This was all very different from listening to Professor MacNialFs beauti ful lectures, and dreaming of a pure, high, starry career. She noticed, looking at the "sea of faces," that there was hardly a woman in the hall. Mrs. Magee, whose bonnet had been turned awry in her effort to get a good seat, was just behind her son-in-law. Mary Ann stood in the room near the stage, opening into the side street. She had been instructed to have Miss Grayson s wraps in readiness, and her heart was in her mouth, for she felt that Maginnis was up to something. 277 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS From her place she could see Maginnis and the purple roses on her mother s spring hat. Maginnis clapped his hands, and applause followed that seemed somehow to have an ironical echo. The lecturer forgot to kick the train of her black chiffon gown, as set down in several rehearsals; but she opened her manu script very gracefully, cleared her throat, and read, gaining strength as she went on. Her auditors were silent, and they appeared to be expectant. She was just beginning to think that her black gloves made her hands seem very small when she began with a careful "prelude." "Philosophy is the key of life, and, I may say, the key of poetry. A poet s ethics, by ethics I mean the philosophical conduct of life, comes from his essential consciousness. If Pope had been less self-seeking, less malicious, less mischievous, less treacherous " Magiimis jumped from his seat and caught her arm THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE A roar from the suspicious front benches followed these assertions. "Glory be to God, Maginnis!" whispered Herself, leaning over in her excitement and tapping her son-in-law s elbow, "what is she sayin against the Pope?" "Pope s treachery," continued Blanche, trembling a little, "was the result of a " Catcalls and groans interrupted her. An egg, brought into the hall, in spite of all vigi lance, struck the edge of the stage. Blanche stepped back, open-eyed and startled. Magin nis jumped from his seat and caught her arm, and hurried her out to Mary Ann. "Oh, Mr. Maginnis," she asked, now trem bling very much, "why will they not listen? Am I a failure?" "They re the ignorant kind that hate educa tion," said Maginnis, consolingly. "They 11 tear the hall down next," he added, with com placency. 281 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS The world seemed to be falling around Blanche; but there, just outside the door, was Benny Gore, who lifted her into the carriage. "He s betther nor a career, miss/ Magin- nis whispered. "Take him, and, if you 11 ac cept my advice, Mr. Gore, you II drive the bride s father with you to Father Blodgett s, for his emotions have n t left him a leg to stand on." And, indeed, the Colonel seemed dazed. Blanche leaned her head on Benny s shoulder and wept. "Was it so very bad?" she asked. "I m afraid so," he said, "for they re hav ing a fight in the hall over it yet." "I shall never try again," she answered, with a sob. "You and your wife will meet us at the rec tory," said Benny Gore to Maginnis. "And I 11 never forget you." " T was Herself s work, Mary Ann," whis- 282 THE DESCENT OF BLANCHE pered Maginnis, "encouragin a homeless or phan to her own destruction. And I m glad the twins are not old enough to hear of it. Mary Ann, lead your mother to the rectory. I 11 follow/ He stood alone under the lamp-post; he chuckled, as he read his masterpiece, which some rude hand had recently plucked from a blank wall: "Bracton Town Hall, May 28, 1902, at eight o clock. Lecture : The Damnation of the Celt in Literature. by An Escaped Nun. Tickets, fifty cents, admitting two/ "No Kerry boy could stand that he said, "and well I knew it ; but I d like to have the spalpeen by the neck that threw an egg at the lady. T is a good piece of work," he added, folding up the poster ; "but, glory be ! T is the last thing I 11 do of the kind, if I can help it." 17 283 VIII THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS BRACTON, in the early spring, is at its worst; the trees bud sooner than any where north of Washington, but they are more capricious, and just as one thinks that the maples will put on a friendly aspect, they refuse to do anything of the kind. It was one of those dark, soggy afternoons when the daf fodils are standing at the wings in bright yel low skirts and seem to be delighted to keep the audience waiting until the very last note of the prelude to the spring song has ceased to sound. Even the good cannot be happy on a day when mist hangs over the roofs of factories and the roads suck up galoshes and when fog whistles blow on the river. 284 THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Maginnis reflected somewhat in this man ner, as he pottered about the garden patch in front of St. Kevin s rectory, and considered the goodness of the pastor, the Reverend Stephen Wetherill Blodgett, and heard the word "Pa-a-a-x, Pa-a-a-x!" shrilling from the church, where the leading soprano was rehears ing the Easter music. He had just had a slight conversation with a stranger, who said that he wanted to see a clergyman between trains, and that he had been sent to the rectory. "I reckon," Maginnis had said, with a touch of superciliousness, "from your accent that you re not wan of our own people. You 11 find the Methodist parson just beyant." When the stranger had thanked him, Maginnis said to himself that he had forgotten to explain that the clergyman was colored. "If he wants spir itual consolation," he reflected, " t will be the same whether it s black or white." 285 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS The organ in the church rumbled. The voice began again "Pa-a-a-x!""P-a-a-a-x!" Father Blodgett stood near his window, very erect, with one hand in his cassock pocket, the other shielding his right ear he was slightly deaf in his left. "Pax!" repeated Father Blodgett, a weary look coming over his pale face. "Peace when there is no peace!" He took out his pocket handkerchief to wipe the steam from the win dow pane for it was washing day in the little rectory in order to look at Maginnis, who ap peared to be giving personal attention to each struggling blade of Bermuda grass. Father Blodgett sighed. There are times on wash ing days in small houses, for instance when, even to the highest types of the spiritual mind, the world is dreary. The fog whistles and the voice prevented the good pastor from sleeping, and his conscience was set against drink as a 286 THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS relief from care. This aspect of the case struck the faithful Maginnis to the heart. "I have often been too hard on Maginnis/ thought Father Blodgett, as he looked through the clear place in the pane of glass, "when he complained of his mother-in-law, and I have no doubt good women can sometimes do almost as much harm as the bad ones if there really are any bad ones. It s too bad ! too bad !" he thought, "and the factions reconciled in this parish and all the difficulties the Bishop pre dicted when he sent me here to overcome. Maginnis has struggled very hard to be quite truthful of late; it will strengthen his resolution perhaps, if I have a little talk with him." The truth was that even this ascetic and mod est soul was hungry for human companionship. There had been silence in the choir for some time. Then the voice broke out again. It was a metallic voice capable of unlimited endurance. 287 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS It began in a tremolo and then ran up the scale, while the organist evidently in obedience to a sharp command, ceased to play. The voice re verberated and rouladed and clung in pensive flutings about "A" in the word "Pax"; it thrilled the air with vibrations that, if not made within a sacred edifice, surely would have sounded like urgent shrieks for help. "She s got em bad !" murmured Maginnis, straightening his back for a moment, and light ing his pipe. "And a good man, the pasther is none better ! He s too good ! Sure Fa ther Dudley at the Bishop s would know how to deal with her. He s too good ; sure the whole choir would resign, if it was n t for his goodness. It s too bad," continued Maginnis, remembering the existence of Herself, "that, even when a man s not married, he should be worried by the ways of the sect. If he d only smoke a pipe or take a drink between meals, on a day like this with that soprany practisin . 288 THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Sure," he concluded, "he s peculiar, like all converts!" And he sighed. Then, in the kindness of his heart and also for compan ionship he went upstairs, "to look after the pasther a bit." The door of the room was ajar, but Maginnis knocked with great gentleness and coughed politely. "I thought your reverence was restin ," he said gently. "Resting?" repeated the pastor, "Is is pos sible for anybody to rest with that going on? I hear," continued the pastor, "that the choir rehearsal last evening in the school hall was almost indecorous because because that lady wanted to sing all the Easter solos." "I won t say t was indecorous," answered Maginnis, leaning respectfully against the wall. "There was no blood drawn. And, if any thing had happened, Iky Bludstein, the report er, would have kept it out of the paper, out of regard for your reverence." 289 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Father Blodgett s face was a picture of re signed disgust. "I attinded myself," went on Maginnis, "in case anything should go wrong, and it did me good to hear Mrs. John Moldonovo little El len O Reilly that was give Mrs. Gillooly a piece of her mind on them words in the Sanc- tus they both wanted to sing. Me an ama- chooer, said Mrs. Gillooly, polite like, but with her eyes blazin . You take breath like a grampus! said little Ellen. Me, said Mrs. Gillooly, Me who was told by Marchesi when I was in Paris that she could n t do anything more for me! me an amachooer! It made my blood curdle to hear her laugh. And then the organist banged down the lid of the piano, and said well, savin your prisence, he said that" "Never mind, Maginnis!" Father Blodgett groaned. "It was natural enough," said Maginnis, 290 THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "though his words were strong that he wouldn t play another note for anybody that had n t ear enough to sing a simple Amen without getting off of the key. But don t think of it, your reverence singers, especially female singers" and Maginnis became very earnest, "have the artistic temperature, and many a fine fight at choir meetings I have stopped in my time by inventin some thing soothing" Maginnis paused, blushing slightly. Father Blodgett was apparently not listen ing. Maginnis straightened a picture, in or der to give a reason for his existence in the room. "Herself and Mrs. Gillooly have many points in common, though they re in different ranks of life. They re both widows ; there s this consolation, that there s always the hope that they 11 marry again, and the widow with a second husband always has so much to do that she can t manage other people s affairs. 291 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "I wish to heaven that Mrs. Gillooly would marry somebody outside the parish," said the pastor, with unusual warmth, beginning to walk up and down the room. "Since she came, there s been no ease or comfort here. She meddles in everything. She insults my house keeper by making criticism. She comes at all hours of the day. She is always having in fernal scruples of conscience and telephoning about them." Maginnis looked up, pleased; he had never heard such "natural" language before from the pastor ; it warmed his heart. "She preaches to the poor mothers about their duties to humanity when their only duty is to get as much rest as they can when they Ve looked after the needs of their husbands and children. She s brought a lot of horrible painted statues from abroad, and she pesters people to buy tickets in a lottery for raffling them off 292 THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "And not one of St. Patrick in the whole lot," muttered Maginnis, "the renegade!" "She s started a class of factory girls in the study of Dante and Bernard Shaw !" "The unfortunate creatures !" murmured Maginnis, sympathetically. "She insisted on adapting the music of the drinking song in Traviata to the Tantum Ergo "- "She did!" cried Maginnis, carried away with horror, "Glory be to God !" "And," the pastor seemed to be suddenly at tacked with nausea, "she has made a horrible crayon picture of me, and exposed it to the public gaze in River s Drug Shop, on chances as she calls it, for an orphan asylum! And she s going to have a course dinner, I see in the Star, in O Keefe s barn, to pay for another and doubtless more terrible statue to be put up in my front garden! I can deal with men, but" 293 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Women are the Lucifers of this world," said Maginnis, suppressing himself in time. His soft heart was touched. He felt that his ascetic and reserved pastor must have suffered indeed, to have spoken so freely, for he was sel dom so expansive. Maginnis guessed that the exhibition of the crayon portrait had produced this effect. Father Blodgett was always very unreserved with children, but he seldom used words not carefully measured with their elders. Maginnis could sympathize thoroughly with the pastor s indignation against the constant med dling of Mrs. Gillooly, but he regarded the crayon picture as a work of art of which any body might be proud. However, the pastor must be "humored" and anything for a half hour of social conversation ! "It s intolerable!" exclaimed Father Blod gett, rapidly walking his floor, with his hands clasped behind him. They were capable hands, but now they seemed to express the utter help- 294 THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS lessness of the man to whom they belonged. "She came to this spot unattractive to an or dinary woman of means because she was a bereaved widow in search of quiet. She want ed to be near a church. She said she d like to spend her surplus income on the poor, but there are no really poor people here " "Ah-a!" said Maginnis, with an air of owl- like wisdom, "I see it all ! She came because she could save her money while she was look ing for the poor " "You are uncharitable, Maginnis ! It s my belief that she came and stayed simply for the pleasure of interfering in other persons busi ness. The rich New England Contractor left her well off, she had done Europe several times, she could live where she pleased, and yet she chooses this unhappy spot." " T is because of your sermons, Father," said Maginnis, dropping the lid of his left eye, "though she has remarked more than wancst 295 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS that they ve more of St. John in them and less of St. Pether than she liked." The pastor s face flushed; he looked at the Braun photograph of the Murillo on the wall, and closed his lips. The voice from the church rose again "Pleni, Pleni, pleni, pleni, pl-1-l-l-l-ni, pl-1-M-l-ni, sunt, sunt, SUNT, chaeli, chaeli, chaeli, CHAE li !" The pastor forgot the Murillo. "It must stop!" he said. "That woman makes strife grow up whenever she moves ; she s pester ing the Bishop about an orphan asylum, though the good people are glad to take into their own homes the few orphans we have ; she does n t honestly want an orphan asylum, she wants to have an excuse for a progressive euchre party, which is disguised gambling. She wrote an anonymous letter to his Lordship, complaining that St. Kevin s did n t have rose-colored vest ments on Laetare Sunday, as if / was n t care ful enough about the rubrics. She has written 296 THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS an abusive article in The Star on the Free Ma sons, who gave us three hundred dollars for the hospital fund, and she s raked up Anglican Orders again in another letter, and opened a horribly unchristian debate on a subject which does not concern our poor people." "It s zeal," said Maginnis, winking the other eye and industriously brushing the pas tor s overcoat. "Zeal! The worst of this kind of zeal is that it is turning this little town, where every body was forgetting to hate, into a hot-bed of strife ! What can I do ? What can the Bishop do? She talks him to death whenever she can catch him I verily believe he is afraid of her." "After all," said Maginnis solemnly, "a Bish op is only human. If she could be married to somebody that did n t know her, we d be better off it s often I Ve had the same thought about Herself. But, in the case of Mrs. Gillooly, there s no man of her own class 297 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS of life in Bracton or thereabouts that I know of." "I hope she will not marry anybody in this parish," said the pastor, hastily. "But, if an unfortunate wretch could come from far away parts and take her, I d bless him ! Good heaven !" he murmured, conscience-stricken, "I am forgetting my principles and my dignity." "There he is again !" interrupted Maginnis, glancing out the window. "He 11 like to see you I suppose he did n t find what he want ed." Up the soggy road came a man of average height, who seemed desirous of becoming sig nificant by assuming a distinguished appear ance. His tall hat was unusually tall; he swung a light cane jauntily; there was a very slight band of black on the left arm of his open tan-colored overcoat, and he showed an ex panse of limp shirt-front. A little lock of black hair was visible on his forehead which 298 THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS matched a small mustache darkly contrasting with a very rosy complexion. Maginnis de scended at once and met the newcomer at the garden gate. "Is the reverend gentleman at home?" "He is," said Maginnis. "I have been rather disappointed in the cler gyman you sent me to. I have no prejudice, but I discovered that he was a gentleman of color No? I am not a book agent. I have spent my time in buying up patent rights, and I am about to retire from business; I am not in life insurance. There is, therefore, no rea son why the reverend gentleman should not see me. I dropped off here, to remain between trains because I needed spiritual advice and a clergyman of any denomination can give it to me." "You re not wan of our people?" said Ma ginnis, doubtfully. "My religious traditions are eclectic, but, as 299 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS I said, I have no prejudice," answered the newcomer, somewhat impatiently. "Ah, that voice, did you hear it a moment ago ?" "Hear it !" Maginnis could say no more. "Lovely timber ! My wife had a voice like that. Her Holy City was great ; this brings back memories !" Maginnis leaned on the gate in a leisurely manner. "My name is Job C. Souerby; take it to the reverend gentleman; I have not much time to lose. I have reached a psychological moment but who may I inquire is that voice ?" "Here it comes/ said Maginnis, grimly. A lady, who seemed to be of well-preserved upper middle age, came graciously towards them. She carried a roll of music in one hand and held up her skirt gracefully with the other. "That voice !" said Mr. Souerby, addressing himself to Maginnis, but looking at Mrs. Gil- 300 THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS looly. "The place for that voice is in West minster Abbey." "Or the cathedral of Tralee !" added Magin- nis, carried away by Mr. Souerby s gallantry Mrs. Gillooly paused. "Oh, Maginnis," she said, taking no notice of the stranger, "the organ must be tuned; it flattens my high C." Maginnis seemed undecided; then he made a rapid utterance "Mrs. Gillooly, allow me to interjuce Mr. Souerby? Mr. Souerby, Mrs. Gillooly; now I may say that neither had the advantage of the other." "Charmed!" said Mrs. Gillooly, showing beautiful teeth and shaking the forest of ostrich feathers on her hat. "You remind me of some body I have seen." "In dreams, perhaps," replied Mr. Souerby, promptly! "A community of thought makes 301 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS the world kin. I love romantic poetry. The Raven/ during long years in business, kept me idealistic. I have lived in Ulalume! When I look at you, I look at Helen/ " "From what I have heard of Poe," said Mrs. Gillooly, with a tinge of haughtiness, "I am sure I ought not to approve of him. In fact, I am not poetical/ "What, with that voice !" Mrs. Gillooly unbent. "I have had advan tages, it is true. I have been abroad a great deal. By the way Maginnis, don t let Father Blodgett catch cold ! If he is hoarse at Easter, he 11 spoil the whole effect of the music. Mod- zart requires a delicate tout ensemble " And she passed on, as if soliloquizing on the art she loved. "She is splendid!" said Souerby, "And yet we may never meet again." Maginnis saw his chance. This man was evidently susceptible and a widower, in the 302 THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS stage which precedes a second plunge into mat rimony. He was on the spring board, and a gentle push Maginnis s eyes glistened. Exquisite phrases, artfully spoken, of Mrs. Gil- looly s perfections rose to his mind. Oh that he were free to let his unequalled gift plough through the arid acres of fact! A few light touches deftly on the face of truth, and who knows? the poetic Mr. Souerby might be in duced to carry away the tuneful Mrs. Gillooly from Bracton forever ! The man and the mo ment were at hand. And yet Maginnis could not break his pledge to the pastor, even to save him. The golden chance, as it were, hovered in the air ; and yet he could not grasp it ! His lips moved, but he spoke not. The artistic vision of what he might do absorbed him for a moment ; he looked at the pale face at the up per window and the temptation was almost gone. He might speak in generalities, but that was all, that was all! 303 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "One woman in a thousand, I opine," said Mr. Souerby, sadly looking after the slow-mov ing Mrs. Gillooly. "Ah," said Maginnis, suffering visibly, "there are females that have the beauty of Cleo- pathra with the innocence of the child unborn ! Her husband was a conthractor; he made so much money, he wasn t able to spend more nor a fourth of it in a long life of drink. Think of a woman with a voice like that and her hus band leaving her alone in the world !" "The brute," said Souerby, promptly. Maginnis, heaving a deep sigh, led Souerby to the house. The pastor at once came down to the parlor. It was a bare room, glitteringly clean, with a parish register on a marble-top table, and a photogravure of Raphael s "Spa- simo di Sicilia" on the wall facing the windows. The pastor asked Mr. Souerby to take a seat, and, standing himself, waited. Mr. Souerby became very nervous. 304 THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "It s rather hard, Sir, to begin," he said, "and, all of a sudden it occurs to me that I may seem rather foolish ; but I J m sure you 11 see that my scruples are very real and annoy- ing-" Father Blodgett bowed slightly. "You see I ve been worried for some time; but I 11 make a long story short. I ve worked hard, and my little pouch is quite full just now; I can leave of?. I intend to settle down in some quiet place, like this, for instance, under my own vine and fig tree for life ; but I can t" "Why not?" asked the pastor. "I stopped between trains just to see if some body in the habit of giving advice to dubious minds could n t answer that question for me," said Mr. Souerby, seriously. "I cannot settle down without a wife. What is home without a helpmate? What would solitude be to me without the companionship of a woman, let us 305 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS say, like that grand creature whose voice re cently filled- the air with music, and " Father Blodgett s heart leaped. This man was eccentric, but evidently honest. Was it possible that he might be the deliverer of the parish from the zeal of Mrs. Gillooly? What had Maginnis said during that brief interview at the garden gate? For a moment he hoped that Maginnis had broken his pledge; then he rebuked himself. He who had reproached Ma ginnis so often felt almost aggrieved when his conscience bade him utter only faint praise "Mrs. Gillooly has excellent intentions!" The truth alas! and nothing but the truth ! Maginnis,, who had been listening in the shadow of the background, made a gesture of despair. The Man and the Moment! "I ought to marry, in order to be happy, and I was on my way to Baltimore to propose to a lady whom I adore. Although you are a priest, 306 THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS sir, you are, I am sure a southern gentleman, and you will sympathize with my sentiments. My traditions in religion are eclectic; my wife was a Hard Shell, and I think that her exam ple made my conscience more delicate than is perhaps usual. There are certain vital ques tions/ continued Mr. Souerby, "in which a man s common sense is of no use; he simply can t settle them for himself. My wife never felt safe about my hereafter, and so, to console her I promised I d never marry again." Mr. Souerby paused. "I believed that I was doing the right thing at the time; but then I could not foresee that I should meet a woman so like my incomparable wife even to the very name Agnes that it seems almost treason to my late angel not to make her mine. She has all the virtues that distinguished my wife, except her voice, which was as beautiful as that which sounded from the church a short time ago. You heard it?" 307 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS The pastor merely nodded. "Well, Sir, what I want to know is do you think I am bound by my promise? All my friends who are happily married say yes ; those that are unhappily married say no; but you, I should say, ought to be impartial." Father Blodgett smiled, in spite of himself. Then, checking the smile, he looked thought fully out of the window. Mr. Souerby s face became painfully earnest. "I am sure/ said the pastor, "from what you say that your wife loved you, and would like to see you happy." "At the same time," broke in Mr. Souerby, "she always said that my view of things was not sufficiently conscientious, and I would n t want her to think I had no scruples !" Father Blodgett smiled again. "I don t think, my dear sir," he said, "that a good wife would want her husband to be unhappy. She might not like her children to pass into the 308 THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS hands of a woman not of her own choosing" "I have no children." "You need, then, have no scruple as to a promise given unasked in a moment of intense emotion a hasty promise. There is no rea son, especially as you are anxious to marry one so like your wife, that you should distress your self with morbid doubts." "She is the gentlest creature why the lady with the voice whom I met at your door could not be more gracious or gentle ! I know your Bishop a fine gentleman he is! And, as I asked the advice of nearly all my clerical friends, I asked his too, but he said that, as my first wife was such a paragon, I d better stay single, if I did n t want to be disappointed in a second." "Well heaven bless you!" said Father Blodgett, holding out his hand. "Thank you, Sir; you have greatly re lieved my mind. May I leave a little offering 309 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS for the poor ? and, by the way, I must congrat ulate you on that exquisite work of art the speaking picture of yourself in the window of the drug store, near the station. From a pho tograph not from life, I presume." "Not from life," the pastor replied bitterly. Father Blodgett went back to his room to fin ish the allotted portion of the office for the day. Later, during his walk by the river, he reflected upon the advice he had given. An ordinary man Souerby no doubt Matthew Arnold s homme moyen sensuel but lonely poor chap ! "I trust that he may be happy with his Ag nes! " he thought, with a smile, thinking of the man s simplicity. "I wish that he could have seen Mrs. Gillooly first, and acquired the art of being happy with her." Maginnis approached on his way home. He tipped his hat, and asked if he could do any thing more for his reverence. "No," said his reverence, and, then with a THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS look of humor that was rare with him, he added : "There was one thing, Maginnis, you might have done to-day." "Ah, Father, I know and it went hard with me not to do it and he just as easily managed as plaster in the hands of the bricklayer ! But I stuck to the truth and she is still with us !" And then Maginnis went sadly homeward, knowing that he had stood the test. A few days later Maginnis met Mr. Souerby at the station. He looked sad and seedy. His coat was buttoned up. Instead of his cane he carried an unrolled umbrella, and one of the straps of his suit case hung negligently to the ground. He pushed through the crowd has tily, and entered the solitary cab at the corner. Maginnis wondered, but though he lay in wait, he did not see him again for some time. A few days later he discovered the name of Job C. Souerby, Baltimore, on one of the pages of the 3" THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS entry book at the hotel. Maginnis remarked strangely enough without attaching any undue importance to the incident, that Mrs. Gillooly had been absent from three choir re hearsals. "Engaged this evening," were the words she sent to the not unhappy organist. Towards the end of the second week he noticed Mr. Souerby and Mrs. Gillooly walking under one umbrella by the river. He was charmed; deliverance seemed near ; he determined to say nothing as yet to the pastor. "T is well I told the truth," he said proudly. "No lie could have bettered this. T is the reward of merit, the pastor speaks about," he added. The Sunday in Mid-Lent Laetare had al most passed. It had been a crisp, bright day, and a crocus or two that had sprung up looked as if they would like to hide their heads again under their blankets. Father Blodgett was in unusually good spirits. The rose-colored vest- 312 THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS ments proper to this feast had gladdened the eyes of the congregation, and Mrs. Gillooly had been absent from the choir. All day Ma- /ginnis had frequently paused in his various avo cations and chuckled internally. There was a secret gladdening his breast. On Saturday morning he had seen Mr. Job Souerby, very much dressed, with the poetical lock carefully cut, looking at the crayon picture of the pastor in River s Medical Emporium. "I admire that work of art, Mr. Maginnis," he said. "In fact, I am beginning to regard it as the counterfeit presentment of a benefac tor!" The pastor, vespers over, was walking up and down the garden path, breviary in hand, when Mr. Job Souerby opened the gate. Maginnis, who was going out on his way home turned, to reintroduce him to Father Blodgett. The pas tor, fastidious as he generally was, except about children and the very poor, showed that THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS he was glad to see that quick-tongued gentle man again. He was curious about the issue of the romance, and perhaps a trifle lonely. He finished the passage in the office, closed the book, and held out his hand. Mr. Souerby s clothes were very new; his black cravat had gone; one of a lilac color adorned with a baroque pearl gave a joyous appearance to his chest. "I came, Sir/ said Mr. Souerby, blithely, "to offer you a good cigar, and to say that I am a happy man I quoted your words to her, Sir, and she consented." Father Blodgett shook his hand again even more cordially. Maginnis raised his eyes to heaven as if in thanksgiving. "And we are going to take a home here it s a sweet little place. She likes this town, so do I. Affinity coupled with congeniality of taste." "Excellent," said Father Blodgett. "I trust THE TEST OF SEXTON MAGINNIS that everybody here will try to make you and your Agnes content/ "Agnes !" Mr. Souerby bloomed, like a red, red rose. He paused an instant, rather embar rassed. "Oh! not Agnes! Agnes refused me when I went and asked her She was of the opinion that a man with an angel wife would never feel that he had found another But the lady that owns me as the Irish say," he said with a jocose glance at Maginnis, "is the gen- tilest, clingingest, yet most queenlike creature on this earth ! As soon as I saw her, I felt that, though I was in honor bound to propose to Ag nes, she was my Helen. That voice " "What," exclaimed Father Blodgett. "Her name is Julianna Julianna Gillooly. I knew I would surprise you !" There was a profound silence. A few early frogs in the marsh could be heard distinctly. "And you are going to" began Father Blodgett, faintly. 315 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS " stay in Bracton as long as you are here, Sir! I intend to sit under you every Sunday and listen to my wife s glorious voice. Bet ter is that even than the worship of the Essence under the oak trees of Nature s grove, as In- gersoll once said. It s woman, Sir, that leads us upward! Julianna made only one condi tion, that she wouldn t have to give up her choir work. And, Sir, the proudest ornament of our dwelling will be your portrait !" "Maginnis," said Father Blodgett, faintly, "give Mr. Souerby a cup of tea or something. Excuse me I must go I am rather tired on Sunday evenings." Maginnis followed him and whispered. U T is a hard world, your reverence !" "It is," said his reverence. 316 IX THE UNPAYING GUEST TO have achieved success and yet to know that one has a daughter who will not believe that she is better than her husband is one of the saddest things that can occur to an ambitious mother-in-law, especially, if, like "Herself," she is a widow. The Yellow Peril, which, in the eyes of Her self, had threatened her adopted country was gone, the solitary Chinaman in the place hav ing given up washing and taken to vegetable gardening. In these years of ease, Mrs. Magee had turned to things of the mind. In the intervals of controlling her business, she read various historical works, purchased from 317 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS book-agents. It is true that she had awakened some esthetic longings in the heart of her daughter Mary Ann, who was still the slave of Maginnis. In her lonely condition there was nothing left for her but to change her "state of life," as she expressed it, and she fixed her eyes on Mr. Michael Carmody, who for some months had been an unpaying guest in the house of Maginnis: he had come with the forsythia in February and remained with the asters in October. This intention was, how ever, contingent on a certain possibility. She was about to confess her changed view of life to Mary Ann when the dazzling result of her efforts for the improvement of her daugh ter blazed upon her and stunned her into silence. Mary Ann had been induced to "take" two quarters instruction in painting at the con vent, where the pious teacher marveled at the futility, and said prayers that the loss of time, 318 THE UNPAYING GUEST a sin against holy poverty, might be for given. On a mellow morning late in October, Mary Ann suddenly appeared with the completed fruit of her labors. It was a highly polished black disk on which a large crimson rose, sur rounded by buds of various sizes, seemed to be crawling among very green, serrated foli age. Maginnis, when he saw it, had honestly understood the masterpiece to represent a portrait of a large lobster and four smaller lobsters "boiled alive." "The Lord be good to us !" said Mrs Magee, as she held the work of art at arm s length. " J T is beautiful entirely ! It has its own mean- in , Mary Ann. Many a time in the old days, when I was bent over the wash-tub, with these hands that can wear kids now, up to their elbows in the suds, and you only a girleen, did I think of a time when you would take vo cal and instrumental and art; but you spoiled 319 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS it all by marryin beneath you. That s done; what s done, can t be undone." Herself sighed herself into silence, and fixed a happy stare on the manifestation of her daughter s talent. The lemon-colored sun shine of the early noon was turned to crimson as it glowed through the curtain of Virginia creeper that hung over the window of the little parlor from which Mrs. Magee ruled the half- dozen young persons who worked in the Olym- pia Laundry. It paled before the rich plush brilliance of the album which ornamented the marble-topped table, and irradiated the title of a large gilt-edged volume entitled "The Sor rows of the Empress Josephine" which lay near by. , -. ^, .-.V-. v "The picture has a meanin , whether you in tended it or not," continued Herself, thought fully. "The rose, Mary Ann, is you, and the buds is the children." Mary Ann was rosy enough, and her large 320 THE UNPAYING GUEST felt hat, adorned with clusters of blue tulips and loops of azure ribbon, gave her an un usually Rubensian appearance. She looked closely at the picture, amazed for the moment by her own genius; but she was a loyal soul, and therefore she said somewhat resentfully: "But where s Maginnis ?" "He s not in it," retorted Herself emphat ically. "And he s no right to be. It would serve him right, if you d leave him. What with me payin the way of Thomas Francis and Dominick Raymond at the boardin -school in Baltimore, you, if you d give yourself up to art, could get along very well without him." "Leave Maginnis!" exclaimed Mary Ann, in horror. "I thought you were a good Christian woman, Mother!" The work of art was rudely pushed aside, and Herself, by a quick movement, saved it from destruction. "If you d cultivate your mind more, Mary 321 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Ann, you d know the ways of men better. Time after time have I asked you to read his tory. Read the history of the Empress Jose phine, which a certain woman sold to me at one dollar a month, and it s worth its weight in gold, and you 11 see that if Josephine had left Napoleon first, he could n t have left her, and the map of Europe might have been differ ent. Oh," Mrs. Magee continued bitterly, "it s not my daughter you are, but the very twin of your deceased father. He liked to be trampled on, and me with the flower of my youth witherin over a wash-tub. Ah, well," she sighed, "if circumstances were what they might be, maybe I d find a man wanting of me yet ; but I 11 not speak of that now. When I compare Maginnis with your guest, Mr. Michael Carmody, I feel the iron in my soul; ar I the Lord keep Carmody from them that has the guile of the birds of the air and the cun ning of the beasts of the earth " 322 THE UNPAYING GUEST "Old Carmody!" exclaimed Mary Ann, her face flaming under her blue hat, "Him! He has n t paid us a cent for months, though he boasts of his grand relations in Ireland and his theatrical triumphs, all the time borrowing money from Maginnis for even his shaves and his tobacco. It s hard on us, with Mary and the twins to take care of, to be feeding an idle man like him. And Maginnis was that mad the other night he set the rusty windmill be hind the house going. It shrieked all night like old Satan ; not one in the house could sleep, but Carmody said it was refreshing because it reminded him of the Third Avenue Elevated. Mrs. Towner says that Maginnis has the pa tience of Job." "My poor child!" Mrs. Magee breathed softly, "Ah, my poor, poor child!" "I wouldn t keep the lazy creature a day longer if you did n t insist on it. Maginnis is sick of him and his boasts." 3 2 3 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Michael Carmody has been used to a great deal Mary Ann," said Herself, severely. "He comes of fine old Kerry stock. He lived for years in New York, and he has the polish of it on him yet " "But that s no reason why he should bor row money for his shaves and tobacco from Maginnis day after day, and Maginnis him self trying hard to make both ends meet. It s only for fear of offending you, as I said, that I keep him. Mrs. Towner who pays her board regularly, thinks we re foolish for feeding him. These legs, he said the other day when he borrowed Maginnis s best pair of pants, were once applauded to the echo in "Romeo" on a Broadway stage, and they re reduced to wearing 1 an ordinary man s breeches ! It s no wonder Maginnis loses patience. In truth, he d turn Carmody out of doors to-morrow, he d do anything to be rid of him, if I did n t keep respect for you before his mind." 324 THE UNPAYING GUEST "Ah, Mary Ann, since I Ve been readin the story of Josephine, which I subscribed to at the request of Mrs. Towner, your boarder, I have learned that Maginnis has no more spirit than Code Napoleon, the only one of the per- fid-i-ous Emperor s brothers that seems to have had no character and does nothing but be named in history, and that even poor Jose phine had more energy than you. Carmody s uncle is Tim O Connell, a near friend of the Liberator s family, the O Connell s of Cahirceveen, and he 11 have a snug fortune of his own, so you see he has a right to boast; and last week I had a letter that Uncle Tim J s not expected to live, and I m expecting another. Sure, Carmody s asked me twice to have him. Mrs. Magee, he said, these arms that have strangled Desde- mona in many a one-night stand in the West and were almost reduced to vaudeville by the persecution of the managers are at your dis- 325 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS posal for better or for worse/ He s comin again to-night, Mary Ann, and I 11 take him if his uncle is no better." Mary Ann s lips fell open; she was incredu lous. "I can t believe it, Mother," she said "I m sure Maginnis would find a way of preventing it." "Maginnis !" exclaimed Herself, indignantly. "And is the likes of him to come between the course of true love and me? Don t be afraid that the little I have won t go to the twins when the cold tombstone is laid over me, if that s what you re thinkin of. Maginnis, indeed ! It s time, Mary Ann, that you d open your eyes to the attention Mrs. Towner is payin to your unhappy husband." "Mrs. Towner!" Mary Ann s eyes bulged. "Mrs. Towner s been boarding with us since June and she s always paid her way. It s she that calls your fine Carmody the unpaying 326 THE UNPAYING GUEST guest/ and she s been kind to the children, and she s a widow without even chick or child. And a hard life she has out early and late trying to sell people books that don t want them. I ve heard Carmody himself say," Mary Ann added with a touch of malice, "that if she had his genius, with her figure, she d make a great success on the stage." "Mary Ann/ said Herself, "if you re a woman, you 11 give up Maginnis, or make that woman, with her dyed pompeydoor and her painted cheeks, leave the house." Mary Ann s face expressed a certain triumph. "You ve always said that no other woman would look at Maginnis but me," she began. "At a certain age," said Herself, cuttingly, "our sex is n t particular ; and to a woman brought up with the natives, any Irishman has his attractions and she with her smooth tongue and her pompeydoor." 327 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Oh, Mother, I m surprised at you!" cried Mary Ann, really hurt and shocked. "I don t believe it; but I 11 see Father Blodgett." "Don t be runnin to priests with questions your own conscience can settle," said Herself. Maginnis is makin love to another woman/ you 11 say. I don t believe it/ his Reverence will answer. It s true/ you 11 say, not want- in to bring my name intil it. Then go and be a better wife/ he 11 say ; for, after all, a priest s only a man, and he 11 be for standin up for his own sex. That s the reason the blackest infidels like religion in their wives ; the priests are all with the men." "And he d be right," cried Mary Ann burst ing into tears, "for I m sure he s too good for me." "That I should live to hear this !" exclaimed Herself, throwing her hands toward heaven. "Mary Ann, you 11 decide at once that you or 328 THE UNPAYING GUEST Mrs. Towner will leave the house, or I 11 dis inherit the twins." Mary Ann hesitated. To doubt Maginnis would be rank treason; to believe that the splendid and imposing book-agent, Mrs. Juno Fortescue Towner, as her cards read, was pay ing attention to Maginnis would have been rather flattering to her own taste, if she could have believed it. Mrs. Juno Fortescue Towner was a large- bosomed and grandiose-looking widow, gen erally attired in purple and mauve colors, whose cheeks were toned by powder and rouge. Her deportment was elegant in the extreme when on duty ; but, after the labors of the day, her splendor and majesty often fell from her, She was then only a tired woman who longed for rest, who dropped tears over the Maginnis twins, and wished to heaven that she could stay at home on rainy days and read "The 3 2 9 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Duchess" and Rhoda Broughton. On the death of her husband, she had taken to selling books. She assumed it as a road to the stage, but the fates had not been propitious, and now she wanted, as she termed it, only "disinter ested love and appreciation." In fact, the poor woman, who seemed so imposing to the un initiated, and so much of an adventuress to the worldly, simply wanted to look out of the win dow of any place that she could call her own upon the bustling, hurrying, every-day crowd. She envied the easy-going life of the folk at the Curtice Place, where nobody was ever in a hurry and where the only cloud was the threatening pressure of Herself in the distance. Mr. Michael Carmody found her sympathetic; he had sung and danced in good old Harrigan and Hart times, when his brogue was inimi table, and even now he could sing "The Kerry Dance" in a voice somewhat muffled in the high places that filled Mrs. Juno Fortescue 330 Even now lie could sing " The Kerry Dance THE UNPAYING GUEST Towner with longings for her youth. The great shock of red hair that had once covered the head of Mr. Michael Carmody was sprink led with gray and it was very thin about the temples; his shoulders were slightly bent, and the legs that had been once the story was apocryphal those of Romeo, were thin and shriveled, and not improved by the fringes which much wear had added to his trousers. He was never weary of retailing the incidents of his debut. He had driven the horses of the first real fire-engine seen on any stage, in one of Mr. Augustin Daly s early plays, and he declared with deep bitterness that the fas tidious manager would have cast him for the melancholy Jaques had he been willing to have a really perfect nose "built up." "Look at it!" he frequently said. "With a touch of grease paint t would have graced Julius Ccesar, and he called it a pug! And 20 - 333 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS that after I d given All the world s a stage in a way that was never done before!" Mrs. Juno Fortescue Towner her name had been Jane Turner loved theatrical people and theatrical anecdotes. She hung on his stories, and made him repeat them, in the evenings when, smoking his unwilling host s mixture in the one brier-wood pipe, with his feet in the same host s only pair of slippers, he held forth. On these occasions, seated in the only comfort able chair in the kitchen, he lectured on the lights and shadows in the lives of those who are as stars to the multitude. Maginnis and Mary Ann were kind-hearted people, and they heard with horror the stories he poured out night after night of the doings of the people of the stage. "He 11 roast in purgatory for it !" exclaimed Mary Ann more than once. "If I meet him in purgatory," said Maginnis, "I 11 be surprised and disappointed. T is 334 THE UNPAYING GUEST lower he 11 go." And he pointed downward significantly. Once when Mary Ann happened to mention an actress whom she had once seen and adored, Carmody said cruelly : "Opium. Drinks it like a fish." Mary Ann burst into tears, and Ma- ginnis smote the pipe out of his guest s mouth in a rage. "I 11 teach you," he said, "to say things like that !" And Carmody had slunk off to bed. "You know," Maginnis added, when the guest had gone "you know the actors can t be so bad as he says, Mrs. Towner. You seem to be a kind-hearted woman; how can you lis ten to him, ma am?" "Of course I don t believe all he says," Mrs. Towner had admitted; "but they were his ri vals in the old days, and genius is never toler ant of rivalry. Besides, you know everybody likes to hear evil of stage people." "Lord in heaven!" exclaimed Mary Ann, 335 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS crossing herself, appalled. "If the creature had a good wife, she d keep him in order." "I can see his faults," said Mrs. Towner, frankly, "and / think that after a month or so some of the Broadway varnish might be knocked off him by an energetic woman who d be willing to sacrifice herself." Mrs. Towner actually winked at Maginnis, and her face took on a determined expres sion. Carmody was the sharpest thorn in the life of Maginnis; he boasted, he borrowed, he lounged about the house from morning to night. He was harmless and good-natured, except in speech where the members of the "profession" were concerned, but of a selfishness in small matters that made the life of Maginnis a bur den. Mary Ann, under the spell of Herself, bore the yoke, and Maginnis was compelled to endure it. But a time was at hand, he felt, when Carmody must be made to slide as down 336 THE UNPAYING GUEST a greased pole from the sacred precincts of his home. "Would you marry him?" asked Maginnis of the widow, with a bluntness which produced no resentment on the lady s part. "I d make a great change in him, if I did and he has asked me twice/ she said. "I d make a man of him. He s never known a real American woman in his life, and that s the trouble with him. Some of my late Jack s rel atives said I threw him downstairs because he asked me to carry up a pitcher of ice-water for him." "And did you?" asked Maginnis, enthralled and hopeful. "No," said Mrs. Juno Fortescue Towner, fiercely; "he ran and with the pitcher after him." "And it hit him?" asked Maginnis in a glow. "What can be done once can be done again." "No," said Mrs, Juno Fortescue Towner; 337 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "even in my excitement, I remembered that I was a lady, and I aimed for the left-hand bend of the banister. I hope I m too good a Chris tian to give even a bad husband all he deserves. / could do a great deal with Carmody. He is only lazy and selfish, and most lazy and selfish people have n t really bad hearts ; but you Ve got to pound them well to break the crust off. If I thought he was n t a wreck, or if we had anything to keep us till I brought him to his senses, I d have him playing in vaudeville weepy parts, with an Irish brogue, which he can use when he chooses to make the tears come, and we d be living quite comfortably. I m tired of this life, Maginnis." This conversation took place on the day in October when Carmody, unshaven, unkempt, and depressed, had walked into Bracton, hav ing been refused even the smallest loan by Ma ginnis, who had seen him the night before de liberately appropriate all the tenderloin of the 338 THE UNPAYING GUEST beefsteak, while he told the oft-repeated tale of how he had refused the leading part in "A Parisian Romance" because Mansfield had threatened to kill him if he took it. Maginnis and Mrs. Juno Fortescue Towner were on their way into Bracton and had just reached a pathetic passage in their talk, at which the lady sighed over the improbability of reforming Mr. Carmody in her own tender way, when they reached Giulio s barber-shop. This "Tonsorial Emporium" bristled with an nouncements of "Five-cent shaves" and glow ing advertisements of the famous "Sicilian Cream," made in the macaroni kettle when that utensil was not used by Signora Giulio, which, with massage and vapor baths (fifteen cents), worked wonders on the male complexion every Saturday night. Opposite Giulio s was the Olympia Laundry. Maginnis caught sight of Mr. Carmody standing behind Giulio s flamboy ant sign ; he was a picture of woe ; he was more 339 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS like the Apothecary than Romeo. Maginnis saw it and steered Mrs. Towner away from the doleful sight. Mary Ann watched her hus band from her mother s parlor window. Mrs. Magee pointed out Mrs. Towner with a scorn ful finger. "My poor lamb!" she said. "Look at the deceitful piece, and you believin in him ! Sure, there was never a Maginnis that brought any body luck." Mary Ann was unmoved by the sight; she was quite certain that Maginnis was not to be enticed by any woman; but the thought of her mother s marriage troubled her. At this mo ment the postman appeared, and handed Her self an envelop, with an English stamp, from which Herself took a letter, and then adjusted her spectacles. There was a pause, during which Mary Ann saw Mrs. Towner agree apparently with resig nation to something Maginnis said; then the 340 THE UNPAYING GUEST lady of the pompeydoor turned into Crape Myrtle Street, on her way to dispose of "How to Get Rich in Wall Street," or the other cele brated work, "The Sorrows of the Empress Jo sephine." In spite of her purple and mauve chiffon, she looked very lonely and unhappy. "Carmody would give her an interest in life," reflected Maginnis, "and I m of the opinion that an affectionate woman had better have a bad husband than none at all." Still he hesitated; but at that moment Mrs. Towner came back for the address of the su perintendent of the new cotton oil works. "I 11 tell you this, ma am," said Maginnis, "that if Carmody asks you again, you d better take him. I am informed that his uncle has one of the finest estates in Kerry, and he s the only heir, and the old man can t last a year. That s why I m keeping him as an unpaying guest." He paused and added, under his breath, "the Lord forgive me!" But he went 341 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS on: "Herself told me that five thousand pounds would n t cover his riches, and he of a fine family. His great-grandmother on the mother s side was the third wife of Bart O Con- nell, who was the great uncle of the great Dan iel." Mrs. Towner appeared listless. "And the money s sure to come to him !" "I don t know about it," said Mrs. Towner. Then, oppressed by the thought of the weari ness of her work, she said, with a show of en ergy : "Well, if he asks me again, I ll take him. And you say he really has a rich uncle ?" "Haven t I said so?" asked Maginnis, re proachfully. Mrs. Towner nodded. "It s a bargain," she said. "He could at least carry these accursed volumes, that some days are as heavy as lead." Mary Ann, with an open letter she had taken from her mother in her hand, waved both her arms imploringly toward Maginnis; but Her self, with stern displeasure in her face, took 342 THE UNPAYING GUEST the missive from her, and pulled down the shade; and, alas! Maginnis, unaware of what was going on on the other side of that window- shade, seized Carmody by the shoulder and dragged him from behind Julio Giulio s red- and-yellow sign, on which were advertised hot baths, five-cent shaves, facial massage with Si cilian Cream, a panacea famous against the evil eye, and the sailings of the Mediterranean line. Mary Ann tried to raise the window- shade again; "I want a word with Maginnis," she said excitedly. "I want to warn him that you re about to leave us, Mother ; and I never, never thought you would!" "I m my own mistress," returned Herself, with dignity, "and you 11 stay with me, or I 11 leave you." Mary Ann, with her handkerchief to her eyes, sank into the depths of the red plush sofa. "Carmody," Maginnis began, with great sweetness of manner, "I ve a tender heart." 343 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Carmody cast a look of fire at his host. "I have heard you say it, but I have n t noticed myself. It s hard for a Carmody to be be holden to a Maginnis. When the Carmodys were feasting in their own castle," continued this representative of that august family, twirl ing his unkempt mustache, "the Maginnises were boiling potato skins in water and calling it soup." "Stop that, Mike," said Maginnis; "don t be insulting me, and me holding out the hand of peace. Come into Giulio s and have a shave and a hot bath and the whole bill of fare. I Ve a tender heart ; I m all sentiment ; there s a lady in love with you, and I m the last man to stand in the way of the tender passion." "Whisper!" said Carmody, his watery blue eyes brightening. "Is it Herself?" "I wish it was," returned Maginnis, fer vently; "from the bottom of my heart, I wish it was ! But, there, no such good luck as your 344 THE UNPAYING GUEST taking that old spitfire to Ireland with you! No, t is the most beauteous of her sex, Mrs. Towner." Carmody straightened himself, and placed his right hand sentimentally in the left-hand pocket of a threadbare blue Norfolk jacket. "I can t help attracting the ladies. There was Myrtle Wyncomb she was called the American Lydia Thompson she used to be great in burlesques she took to drink for my sake, and now she s doing old woman in vaude ville. And when Edith de Wild was a sou- brette with Harrigan and Hart oh!" he sighed loudly, "you d never understand, Ma- ginnis, you Ve never been on the Great White Way." "The lady J s willing," said Maginnis, dryly, "and I don t object to helping you along blood s thicker than water to the extent of a new suit of clothes and what Giulio can do, for you look like a tramp." 345 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "You re a brute, Maginnis! I know I m down on my luck; but only for a time. But I tell you this, if they put Macbeth on next autumn, they can t do without me. But enough. Mrs. Juno Fortescue Towner is a woman who could help me ; she has a fine pres ence, literary talent, and you have led me to believe that she has prudently amassed an amount sufficient to keep me from want while I await that opportunity which the vile taste of the public and the cupidity of managers cannot always deprive me of." In a few minutes Carmody was stifled by soap-suds and silent in the hands of Giulio. Maginnis went over to the postoffice to arrange some political work with a friend or two, and, on his return, he found Carmody quite rosy and fresh after all the delicate attentions which cost Maginnis a dollar and a half that the artistic Giulio could show him for the money. About the suit of clothes Maginnis 346 THE UNPAYING GUEST and the unpaying guest had an altercation the guest insisting that the form that had ex cited intense enthusiasm and had rivaled Dixie s in "Adonis" should be clothed more in the manner of Solomon. It was finally pur chased. Then Maginnis, wondering what Mary Ann would say to this reckless ex penditure, led the haughty Carmody into the modest restaurant where Mrs. Towner took her midday meal of tea and chocolate eclairs. She was there. Maginnis ordered a somewhat more substantial refection, and after plying his knife and fork for a proper time, he left the lovers together. "If it turns out well, t will be a good day s work," he murmured as he made his way home ward, with the intention of digging potatoes during the rest of the afternoon ; but a boy in tercepted him with a message from the post master, whose place he sometimes took. When he reached home at last he found that Mary 347 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Ann was still absent. It was after six o clock. The small colored servant handed him a note, which had been left, with a latch-key, on the kitchen table. It was written on gray paper, in purple ink, with great flourishes. In it Mrs. Towner said: "You have been so good to us! Everything is arranged; we were married at five o clock, and we start for Baltimore on the seven o clock train. My husband will be in time the best of men." Maginnis threw himself on the chintz-cov ered settee in the kitchen and howled for joy. Now he could smoke his own pipe. Now he could speak in his own house without contra diction. Now he could lounge in his big chair after the labors of the day. No more stories of how Carmody set actress after actress mad of love for him; now peace. "If it had only been Herself, and she on the train with him," he thought, perceiving a fly in the ointment. 348 THE UNPAY1NG GUEST "If it only had, a happy man I d be this night/ The door opened, and in came Herself, in her best bonnet, with the purple plumes, and her gold watch-chain dangling over her ma genta poplin gown. Mary Ann followed her, looking wretched and tearful. Maginnis was petrified by this apparition. It meant no good; he knew it. He had not strength enough to move. "Maginnis," she said haughtily, holding the door half-open, "I Ve not come as your mother- in-law to make a friendly visit. Such you Ve made impossible by your low manners. I en ter as a bride elect; Mike Carmody s uncle died nine days ago, and he s come into his fortune. Yesterday he laid it at my feet, and I m here to bring the good news to him, and to marry him, as he asked me. We 11 go back to Kerry, where I hope to live for the rest of my life, and drown in connubial bliss the tribulations I have known in this country, which I m sorry I ever 349 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS came to, for here my daughter has demeaned herself. Where is Carmody ?" "Gone," said Maginnis "gone, gone with his lawful wife, Mrs. Towner." And he turned his face to the wall. "Oh, Mary Ann, Mary Ann, the heart knows its own bitter ness !" he moaned. "Gone !" exclaimed Herself "gone, and with that pompeydoor !" and she slammed the door and stalked out into the gloom. "But, Maginnis," said Mary Ann, joyously, "if he s gone and married Herself can t marry him, and then she will not leave us !" "Say no more, Mary Ann," he moaned. He thought of Giulio s charges and the suit of clothes. Life was one vast blackness. "Say no more !" he groaned. 350 X THE CONVERSION OF SEXTON MAGINNIS AFTER the marriage of Mrs. Juno For- tescue Towner to Mr. Michael Car- mody, echoes of her prosperity floated to the humble home of Maginnis at the Cur tice Place. That she had leisure was evident, since hardly a week passed without a letter, written in purple ink, in a large hand, reaching Mary Ann Maginnis. Mrs. Carmody was happy with "her noble husband," who was now earning his "hundred and fifty a week" on the "legitimate" stage. "No human being could ever say with truth that Juno Carmody had forced the man she loved to give up his art even for the best suite of rooms in one of New 351 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS York s smartest apartment houses, in which a number of the Tour Hundred had rooms no better than hers/ Mrs. Carmody wrote. Michael Carmody had come into his own at last; she had come into her own at last. He was now acting the title-role in her own trag edy of "Heliogabalus" to crowded houses. This information was reiterated. "She s got him under her thumb," said Ma- ginnis, with satisfaction, when Mary Ann had read aloud one of the most glowing of these epistles, which read like a page from the in imitable "Duchess," "and she s made him work more power to her. Carmody had his faults," added Maginnis, with a sigh, "but I d give a great deal to hear him sing The Kerry Dance. Sure the freshness of an Irish May mornin came over me when I heard his voice bad luck to him !" These letters filled both Maginnis and his wife with a consuming desire to see New York. 352 THE CONVERSION OF MAGINNIS Mrs. Carmody s pen was eloquent when she wrote about the gay "White Way," and Mary Ann began to dream of "sky-scrapers," the electric lights, the luxury of Mrs. Carmody s "flat," and Mr. Michael Carmody s "art." Maginnis seldom had money ahead, and a trip to the metropolis seemed a hopeless fantasy un til, as he expressed it, "a bolt from the blue knocked him into smithereens." The remote cause of this frenzied change was the need of upholding the honor of the House of Magee as represented by Herself ; the immediate cause was the visit of Mrs. Magee s nephew, Mr. Martin Dempsey. Mr. Dempsey, at the age of twenty-three, had come from his father s comfortable public house in a flourishing town in the County Kerry to take a look at America. He was a tall youth, made pallid by overmuch tea-drinking (as his father kept a public house, he was not allowed to touch "spirits"). He frankly owned that he did not like America; 353 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS the American bacon did not please him, and he announced that if he had to work, he preferred to work at home. He was dissatisfied, too, he privately informed Maginnis, by his aunt s social position. It was not what he had been led to expect. Whatever Mrs. Magee s opin ion of her nephew was, she heroically kept it in her own mind. "Ah oh," said Maginnis to Mary Ann, "Herself s been attendin a mission, and is in a state of grace ; but wait till she gets out of it, and we 11 have her opinion of this upstart." In the meantime the nephew played music-hall airs on the accordion, and tried to teach Mary Ann to waltz in the kitchen of the Curtice Place. "Look at the gentility of him, and him just from the old sod," remarked his aunt. "He has n t the trace of a brogue, and he is as content with his tea as some people I name no names, Mary Ann are more than con tented with their whisky." 354 THE CONVERSION OF MAGINNIS Mary Ann understood the allusion, and cast down her eyes. "When I see the like of him" commented Maginnis, on being informed of this remark, Mary Ann, like a good wife never kept anything from her husband, "I begin to believe that the only good Irishmen are in America." Mr. Dempsey, who, by command of Herself, was domiciled at the Curtice Place, determined to take his departure. It was then that the bolt from the blue fell. It was necessary for the honor of the Magees that their disdainful relative should be "seen off," but Herself could not go to New York. The aftermath of neu ralgia which regularly followed the annual and breezy housecleaning at the Olympia Laundry was upon her. She moaned over her condi tion, and finally suggested that Mary Ann should go in her place as far as the steamship pier. "The Kerry people would make a long story of it if the poor, lonely boy had to leave 355 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS America with never a chick or child to see him off. You 11 go, Mary Ann." "Is it me?" asked Mary Ann. "I d be as timid as a hare in that big place alone." No more was said, but when she reached home she found a more than usually pictur esque letter from Juno Carmody. It described the furniture of her "flat" in the "Lonsdale Arms," the number of buttons on the bell boy was even enumerated, -which, Mrs. Carmody continued, was situated "in the swag ger Nineties." To Mary Ann, the Nineties, the Palisades, and the Flatiron Building were equally mysterious and entrancing. There were references to a hurling match which Mr. Carmody had attended, and this made the eyes of Maginnis glitter for the sport of his youth. "That would be the best of all," he said, "next to seeing Mike Carmody in Helio-ga- boo -lus. Accordin to his wife, he s great en tirely in the part." Maginnis listened with 356 THE CONVERSION OF MAGINNIS ardor in his soul while Mary Ann read of what her correspondent called "the Paradise of dreams realized." Shakspere was out of fashion in New York, she assured Mary Ann; not even the genius of Carmody could revive him. She, devoted to Art and Carmody, would have perished rather than live on the wages of infamy earned in vaudeville, but happily New York demanded Carmody in something splendid, something that Shakspere might have conceived had he known Carmody. And New York now had it in the tragedy of "Helioga- balus," which she, the once poor, struggling widow, had been inspired by him to write. "Does he sing The Kerry Dance between the acts?" asked Maginnis. "That would bring down the house." Mary Ann shook her head. "He s above that." "I pity him then," said Maginnis, emphat ically. 357 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Mrs. Carmody continued to describe the wonderful success of "Heliogabalus," and then she analyzed the drama. "I was, as the authoress, called out thirteen times after the third act," she wrote, "and the spangled satin and chiffon of my court train were quite worn out trailing over the stage." It appeared from the analysis that Mrs. Carmody, now known as the famous author Juno Fortescue, could take liberties with his tory. She had represented Heliogabalus as a gentle creature, forced into wickedness by the world, and especially by the Roman senate, which had passed a decree forbidding him to marry a beautiful slave-girl. The great scene, Mrs. Carmody wrote, was in the third act, after Heliogabalus had determined to smother the senators with roses, in order to soothe the pangs of death which they richly deserved. "The showers of roses, red," Mrs. Carmody wrote, "as the heart of love and June, amber 358 THE CONVERSION OF MAGINNIS as the dying blush in a daffodil sky, and white as the undriven snow, illuminated by a crimson calcium light, drift heavily and sullenly down. Carmody is simply grand here. He stands, you should see him in a Roman toga, on an atrium and says : So ye must die in odorantine scent Which wells in clouds in the ambrosial air, And, like the Orient with its frankincense, Chokes while it giveth life. O luscious rose, Thou emblem of my pride, which cannot see Aught but the joy of death; ah, strew them deep And bury them, the cold and soulless men Who know not love ! Let not the cruel thorns Sting them amain; I would not have them know The pangs that are not needful! Yellow rose" "Who says that?" asked Maginnis. (( Helio-ga-boo -lus." "And they dyin ?" "Yes." 359 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "It isn t natural," said Maginnis, indig nantly knocking the ashes out of his pipe by striking it on the kitchen table. Mary Ann seldom felt superior to her hus band, but she did now. "Maginnis," she said, "from what I can make out, you can t be legitimate in the theater and be natural, too. Carmody was natural in The Kerry Dance ; that s the reason he despised himself for doing it. If you re natural in a big, fashionable theater, you re gone." "I was never much for poetry," continued Maginnis, "except for Moore s Melodies and Willy Reilly and His Colleen Bawn. But let s hear the rest of it." "Then," continued Mary Ann, reading Mrs. Carmody s letter slowly, "the slave-girl Au- relia begs for the life of Glaucus, the youngest and handsomest of the senators. I intended to act Aurelia myself, but Carmody thinks I 360 THE CONVERSION OF MAGINNIS am too patrician-looking to take the part of a slave-girl. When Aurelia had finished her speech there was not a dry eye in the theater. She says: I will not, nay, I cannot call thee god, O Emperor, though thou art, indeed, a god, Until thou givest me from yonder pyre All scented with the odors of the East, That pile of death upon the marble floor, Making a stain of red, where Marshal Niel Mingles with pink La France, when Jacque minot, Thy favorite flower, Emperor, flames among The glory of Die John, and roseate Lancaster Tinges the snow of York the one I love ! Oh, spare him! See the odiferant buds Rise to his very throat. I beg thee, spare him!" "It s not natural," reasserted Maginnis. "It s poetry," said Mary Ann. "G wan!" answered Maginnis, resignedly. "You cannot imagine what Carmody is in the next speech, where he says, to slow music, THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS adapted by himself from the well known waltz, My Queen : O thou Aurelia, do not think I change My great ideals so lightly. They must die, And he, too, with them; yet I soften pangs With roses and the pulsings of the lute "Here Aurelia starts. She alone is aware that Glaucus is really the brother of Helio-ga- boo -lus, and though she knows that it is dan gerous to remind even Emperors of relatives they do not wish to acknowledge, her brave spirit does not quail : He is thy brother, hidden for a time By one who hated thee, who thought to still Thy young affections by disuse, and make thee monstrous. O my Emperor, how oft the loving heart can see To love indeed where there is none to love ! Helio-ga-boo -lus: T is true ! Aurelia: This Glaucus is thy brother! Hello- ga-boo -lus: Say not so ! T is true in deed? 362 THE CONVERSION OF MAGINNIS My very heart-strings twang, and like the minstrel harp, Struck by the sounds of home, I echo love. "Carmody is magnificent here. Then for thy love, and also for the love I bear my youngest brother, I forbear To lessen Glaucus life. Why let him live ! "While the roses fall, Chopin s Funeral March is played by a concealed orchestra." "What s that about choppin ?" asked Ma- ginnis, growing a little sleepy. But Mary Ann went calmly on: "When Carmody waved his scepter and embraced Glaucus, who rushed from among the dying senators, the applause was deafening; I, even I, wept. A lady in the right-hand box, one of the Four Hundred, threw her ermine from her ivory shoulders and actually howled." " T was a fool thing to do," commented Maginnis ; "but I suppose them that s used to theayter-goin understand it." 363 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "They do," said Mary Ann, emphatically, "or Mike Carmody and his wife would not be living in luxury now. There s not much more of it," continued Mary Ann, returning to the letter: "Carmody, looking every inch a Helio-ga-boo -lus, calls out : ? T is my imperial will that he be saved He, Glaucus, and no other, whom gods ordained To be my brother. Glaucus, in his turn, pleads for the lives of the other senators. Helio-ga-boo -lus yields when he finds out that Aurelia is a descendant of Julius Caesar by the female line, saying: O manes of Caesar, I refuse thee nothing ! Helio-ga-boo -lus clasps Aurelia to his heart, the proud senators, hearing that Aurelia is of the House of the Caesars, withdraw their op position, and the curtain goes down, while only pink roses emblems of hope fall. And love 364 THE CONVERSION OF MAGINNIS is triumphant. The managers that once spurned Carmody," the author continued, "are now anxious for his Hamlet at any price ; but no immortal bard for him as long as his wife can write. Ah, my friend, it pays, in the mind and heart, to spurn the low ideas of the popu lace. You say that you will never be able to come to New York. That is sad; I wish you could see our apartment. We are at home on Sunday night, when we have a little saloon " "Saloon," said Maginnis, decisively, deceived by Mary Ann s pronunciation, "if I had to keep a saloon, and was any kind of a man, I d not leave it to my wife. But I thought there was Sunday closin in New York." "It s not that kind of a saloon ; it s spelled with one o," answered Mary Ann, hastily pass ing the word. "Mrs. Carmody says, If you ever come to New York, though that seems impossible, I shall be happy to entertain you. 365 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS I shall never forget your motherly kindness to a homeless girl/ "Girl!" echoed Maginnis. "The old crea ture s dreamin ; but let that pass. She means well, and she s made an honest working-man of Carmody, which I never expected. T would be a great thing if we could go, Mary Ann ; we never had a weddin -trip yet, an I ve never seen New York. I 11 be sorry all my life that when I came to this country I took a tramp steamer from Queenstown to Norfolk. T would be a pleasure, Mary Ann," sighed Maginnis, thinking of the hurling match. " T would, indeed," echoed Mary Ann, re flecting on the beauties of Mrs. Carmody s flat and the splendors of "Heliogabalus." The unexpected happened. Mrs. Magee s neuralgia increased in violence, and, in des peration at the thought of the disgrace that must come to her family if her nephew were permitted to board the departing steamer with- 366 THE CONVERSION OF MAGINNIS out one of his "kith or kin" to present him with, at least, a box of cigars, at the last moment the custodian of the family honor reluctantly con sented to pay the expenses of Maginnis, as well as of Mary Ann, to the city of desire. This was, as Maginnis said, as unexpected as a bolt from the blue of a smiling heaven. The biggest trunk was packed, with the addition of appropriate souvenirs; Mrs. Magee gra ciously sent for the children, so that their mother s mind might be clear; and Maginnis and Mary Ann left Bracton in an ecstasy of anticipation. "Mind," said Mrs. Magee, "to find out all about the Carmodys. I don t believe a word of all that woman has written. Helio-ga-boo - lus/ indeed ! It s only song and dance he s fit for. To think of his marrying a woman as old as his grandmother," she added, with a scornful laugh. The relative from Kerry was "seen off" on 367 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Saturday morning. He said very frankly that he was glad to leave a country where you could not sit still a minute; he scorned some of the souvenirs, with apparent reason, as one of them from his aunt was a huge conch-shell, spotted like a tortoise-shell cat, and another, "Lives of Famous Irishmen" in six volumes. He did not hesitate to say ungratefully that they were not easy to carry. The last words of this unsatisfactory relative were that there was n t a decent cup of tea in America, and that he would never leave his native land unless compelled to by starvation. Maginnis, whose pride was hurt, merely substituted a box of Pittsburg stogies for the Havanas he had been commissioned to buy, and shook hands untear- fully. Then he and Mary Ann faced two days of delight. "Keb?" called a man as they left the dock, and, with a recklessness that struck Mary Ann as fearful, her husband took a hansom. New 368 THE CONVERSION OF MAGINNIS York is the city of the Celt. Why? is a ques tion the answer to which might reflect on the temperament of the Celt, and the nature of the attractions of this fascinating city. Maginnis sniffed the sea air with delight, and for the midday dinner found a place the polished cherry-colored tables of which pleased Mary Ann. Maginnis soon put himself on terms of comradeship with the white waiters ; he was in the habit of disdaining the colored "help" at home. He pointed out celebrities with an air that almost deceived Mary Ann, but as she knew that these celebrities really existed in New York, she was not keen as to whether her generous husband showed her the real thing or not. The Brooklyn Bridge, the Cathedral, all the wonders! and then after a short supper at Sweeny s Hotel, the theater, to see the miracles of "Helio-ga-boo -lus." But in the papers the waiters had amiably brought there was no mention of this tragedy. 369 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS Maginnis could not understand this. "Per haps Carmody, the lazy devil, is taking a night off. T would be like him/ said Maginnis. Mary Ann was visibly disappointed. "I have set my heart on it," she said dolefully. The search was in vain, but Maginnis found an announcement under the head of "Vaude ville." It was in big letters, and read: "Un limited success: 9:30: Rafferty in the Kerry Dance." "There we 11 go, Mary Ann," he said. To these country-folk, the turns on the pro gram preceding the great Rafferty were de lightful. When the curtain rose on "Number five" and revealed a delicately lighted green landscape, with a stream in it that might have been painted by a young and hopeful Constable, Maginnis whispered: "You can see the water-cresses in that little run. T is home." A prelude on the air Maginnis knew so well, THE CONVERSION OF MAGINNIS and RafTerty, apparently young, very alert, and with a delicious Kerry "Top o the mornin to everybody," entered. "He s one of the boys at home/ whispered Maginnis, clutching Mary Ann s arm. "How it takes me back ! I ve seen him somewhere before, Mary Ann. It brings a lump in my throat to hear his voice: I feel just as I did when Carmody sang that same song." The melody rose lark-like and full, with a softness sweetened by the brogue which seemed to be all little curves and grace notes. "I smell the primroses and see the fairy- ring," said Maginnis, as the delicious notes melted into longing for past happiness, and then rose again in ecstasy for present joys, and moonlight fell over the scene. Mary Ann s eyes were moist. " T is beautiful," she murmured. " T is better than Helio-ga-boo -lus a thousand times, and I should think Carmody would do this rather 371 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS than the great, big tragedy. The singing is just like his, only better." Maginnis shook his head ; his eyes were full of tears. The house was silent; it was the fine touch of nature, and even those who could not see the water-cresses and smell the prim roses and knew nothing of the fairy-ring, felt the truth and beauty in the air. T is like Carmody at his best, I must say," said Maginnis, his eyes glistening. The sketch was slight, a monologue in which an old woman was quoted as to the past of her happy youth, with a snatch of song: Look on the wren who pays no rint, And is content. Only a little ballad of the primrose-time, and the joyous dance, and yet Maginnis, and those with memories like his among the auditors, were touched; many eyes filled with tears. The "boy" of the sketch had the magic of a 372 THE CONVERSION OF MAGINNIS voice that made heart-strings vibrate. Again and again he was recalled. He was lithe and he appeared young; his hair was brown and curly. Maginnis knitted his brow. "Mary Ann," he said, as the curtain fell after six re calls of the actor, and "Number six" went up, "T is Carmody!" The tears dried up in his eyes. "And he s ashamed of this!" " T is not legitimate/ answered Mary Ann, amazed at the discovery. "But it s nature, it s real, it s not make- believe!" exclaimed Maginnis. "And from this he s drawin his money, and he ashamed of it. Carmody and his Helio-ga-boo -lus, he added with contempt. "I 11 give him a a piece of my mind! Heaven and earth," he added, with conviction, "how I hate a liar !" "I m thankful that we Ve found it out with out their knowing it," said Mary Ann. " T is the kindest thing to say nothing when we see them." 373 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS "Helio-ga-boo -lus !" muttered Maginnis, "And he ashamed of this!" Maginnis was moody during the rest of the entertainment. "His art," he muttered, "and he makin his wife lie about it all the time! I 11 teach him ! oh, I 11 teach him !" he vowed, and nothing that Mary Ann could say softened his fierce resolve. On Sunday night, after some happy hours slightly embittered in the mind of Maginnis by the memory of Carmody s perfidy, the "Lons- dale Arms" was found. There was a little boy in a blue suit with innumerable brass-but tons in the arched doorway, tw r o top-heavy plants in green buckets, and other evidences of splendor. Maginnis had not thought it necessary to announce his arrival in town, so when the pair had made their rather tremulous journey up ward some distance in the elevator, they found 374 THE CONVERSION OF MAGINNIS Carmody unexpectant in his own drawing- room. He was thinner, his hair was grayer, but he was happier-looking. He reclined on a turkey-red sofa, almost buried in Sunday papers. He welcomed the visitors somewhat perfunctorily, but when Mrs. Carmody, more blondined than ever, appeared in a mauve and purple teagown, enthusiasm filled the room. She was unmistakably fairer, fatter, and for- tier ; but the stamp of success was upon her. "I m the happiest girl on earth," she said, "but Carmody does n t love me," she added co- quettishly; "he lives only for his art." Carmody protested, with an air of having learned his lines. Maginnis warmed under the welcome, accompanied later by high tea in a tiny dining-room, furnished "in Mission," as Mrs. Carmody described it. The drawing- room was mostly occupied by a Turkish "cozy- corner," over which a statue of "The Bather" 375 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS bent between two crossed scimitars and a large colored engraving of "Alone at last," on which Mrs. Carmody said she "doted." "Are you staying over to-morrow night?" she asked with a slight trace of fear in her voice. "No," said Maginnis, promptly. "What a pity, Carmody," said Mrs. Car mody, who was evidently relieved. Then her regret became gushing and girlish. She w r as desolate. "You can t see Carmody in my play. He s great in Helio-ga-boo -lus/ as I told you. It took me nearly a year to write it, and every manager in New York rejected it nearly every manager," she corrected, with a slight flush. "But now oh, now !" "He s great," said Mary Ann, who was ab sorbed in the Morocco brass tray that glittered under a Japanese lantern in the "corner"; she spoke unconsciously, as one in a trance. "I never recognized Carmody until the people 376 THE CONVERSION OF MAGINNIS called him out for the sixth time. Yester day" She paused, flushing and realizing the mis take into which her absorption in all the splen dor had led her. A strained look came into Mrs. Carmody s face; Carmody gazed at Ma- ginnis, appalled. " T was great," said Maginnis, rapidly, "when Helio-ga-boo -lus stomped on the stage, and them roses as big as cabbages began to fall down, it was as exciting as a prize-fight. You 11 never do anything finer, Carmody." Mrs. Carmody recovered herself almost in stantly. "Ah, Mr. Maginnis, what that play cost me !" Carmody seemed unnerved, but Mrs. Carmody took the cue instantly, and Maginnis was on the alert. "Ah, ma am," he said, more rapidly, "Car mody seemed six and a half feet high when he called out in centurion tones, Them roses must 377 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS cease to fall/ or something to that effect. T was grand. If Hello- ga-boo -lus had been t born in our time, they d have had him in a movin picture. I never expect to see the like again." Mary Ann, bewildered, looked in open-eyed astonishment at the singularly gifted speakers. "I never expect to see the like again," Ma- ginnis repeated. "You never will, Mr. Maginnis," answered Mrs. Carmody, calmly; "but you simply can not forget it. If I had a husband who did not love his art, who would sacrifice it for even two hundred dollars a week, what would my life be? Life without ideals of art is a desert." "True enough," said Maginnis, with de cision, as the punch was brought on : "true for you!" "When you come again," said Mrs. Car mody, generously, "you must let me give you 378 THE CONVERSION OF MAGINNIS a stage-box. I think that later I will portray the slave-girl myself." Maginnis began a sound that seemed like a groan, but he stifled it, and asked for more lemon. After this the conversation between the two women drifted to Mrs. Carmody s social position and the New York price of hats. Maginnis and Carmody drank in silence. "Each of us," reflected Maginnis, "has his own thoughts!" Just before midnight Mrs. Carmody threw her arms around Mary Ann s neck and bade her an affectionate good-by. Carmody and Maginnis shook hands gravely. "Oh, Maginnis," began Mary Ann, as they descended, "how could you?" "I don t know how I could or how I could n t," he answered shortly; " t was what Mrs. Carmody calls temperament that carried me away." 379 THE WILES OF SEXTON MAGINNIS " T was my mistake/ said Mary Ann, humbly; "but I wondered at you." "It s hard," answered Maginnis, as they en tered a car, "to show a man you think he s a liar when you re eatin his meat. I would n t like it myself. Helio-ga-boo -lus !" he repeated with a hollow laugh. "Mary Ann," he added solemnly, "I ve taken liberties with the truth myself, I admit that; but a real liar like Car- mody is too much for me. And to think of him being ashamed of doing a good Kerry song and dance! I swear, Mary Ann, that when I get home to Bracton I 11 take a pledge before his reverence to stick to the truth as far as I can. And I m glad Carmody is no kin to me ; I m done with liars, and he and his Helio- ga-boo -lus. " And Maginnis became red in the face from violent and suppressed indignation. "If a man was ever converted by a terrible example, I m that man, Mary Ann," he added, as the couple reached Sweeny s Hotel. 380 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. LD 21-100m-7, 33 789418 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY