he priest looked over to where Mark was
standing hat in hand.

"Don't go, Mr. Griffin, unless you really have to. I'll be away only a
few minutes."

Mark sat down again and thought. The priest had said nothing about the
lady of the tree, and Mark really wanted him to mention her; but Father
Murray had given him something else that made him thoughtful and
brought back memories. Mark did not have long to wait, for the door
opened in five minutes and the priest came out alone.

"Mrs. O'Leary came to arrange for the funeral herself--brave, wasn't
it?" he said. "I left her with Ann, my housekeeper, a good soul whose
specialty is one in which the Irish excel--sympathy. Ann keeps it in
stock and, though she is eternally drawing on it, the stock never
diminishes. Mrs. O'Leary's troubles are even now growing less."

"Sympathy and loyalty," said Mark, "are chief virtues of the Irish I
knew at home."

"Ann has both," said Father Murray, hunting for his pipe. "But the
latter to an embarrassing degree. She would even run the parish if she
could, to see that it was run to save me labor. Ann has been a
priest's housekeeper for twenty-five years. She has condoled with
hundreds; she loves the poor but has no patience with shams. We have a
chronic sick man here who is her particular _bete noir_. And, as for
organists, she would cheerfully drown them all. But Mrs. O'Leary is
safe with Ann."

"Poor woman!" said Mark.

"That reminds me," said Father Murray. "I had a convert priest here a
little while ago. His Bishop had sent him for his initial 'breaking
in' to one of the poorest parishes in a great city. I questioned a
little the advisability of doing that; so, after six months, when I met
the priest--who, by the way, had been a fashionable minister like
myself--I asked him rather anxiously how he liked his people.
'Charming people,' he answered, 'charming. Charming women, too--Mrs.
O'Rourke, Mrs. Sweeney, Mrs. Thomasefski--' 'You speak of them,' I
said, 'as if they were society ladies.' 'Better--better still,' he
answered. 'They're the real thing--fewer faults, more faith, more
devotion.' I tell you, Mr. Griffin, I never before met people such as
these."

"Mrs. O'Leary seems to have her pastor's philosophy," ventured the
visitor.

"Philosophy! That would seem a compliment indeed to Mrs. O'Leary. She
wouldn't understand it, but she would recognize it as something fine.
It isn't philosophy, though," he ad