zon far
away, and the sky was blue overhead; and the poor country was very
beautiful in the still autumn weather, only it was empty. He passed two
or three fine houses that the gentry had left to caretakers long ago.
The fences were gone, cattle strayed through the woods, the drains were
choked with weeds, the stagnant water was spreading out into the
fields, and Pat Phelan noticed these things, for he remembered what
this country was forty years ago. The devil a bit of lonesomeness there
was in it then.

He asked a girl if they would be thatching the house that autumn; but
she answered that the thatch would last out the old people, and she was
going to join her sister in America.

"She's right--they're all there now. Why should anyone stop here?" the
old man said.

The mare tripped, and he took this to be a sign that he should turn
back. But he did not go back. Very soon the town began, in broken
pavements and dirty cottages; going up the hill there were some slated
roofs, but there was no building of any importance except the church.

At the end of the main street, where the trees began again, the convent
stood in the middle of a large garden, and Pat Phelan remembered he had
heard that the nuns were doing well with their dairy and their laundry.

He knocked, and a lay-sister peeped through the grating, and then she
opened the door a little way, and at first he thought he would have to
go back without seeing either Catherine or the Reverend Mother. For he
had got no further than "Sister Catherine," when the lay-sister cut him
short with the news that Sister Catherine was in retreat, and could see
no one. The Reverend Mother was busy.

"But," said Pat, "you're not going to let Catherine take vows without
hearing me."

"If it is about Sister Catherine's vows--"

"Yes, it is about them I've come, and I must see the Reverend Mother."

The lay-sister said Sister Catherine was going to be clothed at the end
of the week.

"Well, that is just the reason I've come here."

On that the lay-sister led him into the parlour, and went in search of
the Reverend Mother.

The floor was so thickly bees-waxed that the rug slipped under his
feet, and, afraid lest he might fall down, he stood quite still,
impressed by the pious pictures on the walls, and by the large books
upon the table, and by the poor-box, and by the pious inscriptions. He
began to think how much easier was this pious life than the life of the
world--the