at you, my dear Tom; but really you know very little
about this matter."

"I know well enough that they remained together last night. I examined
the old woman carefully, and she had just met Kate Kavanagh on the
road. There can be no doubt about it," he said.

"But," said Father John, "they intended to be married; the intention
was there."

"Yes, but the intention is no use. We are not living in a country where
the edicts of the Council of Trent have not been promulgated."

"That's true," said Father John. "But how can I help you? What am I to
do?"

"Are you feeling well enough for a walk this morning? Could you come up
to Kilmore?"

"But it is two miles--I really--"

"The walk will do you good. If you do this for me, Uncle John--"

"My dear Tom, I am, as you say, not feeling very well this morning,
but--"

He looked at his nephew, and seeing that he was suffering, he said:--

"I know what these scruples of conscience are; they are worse than
physical suffering."

But before he decided to go with his nephew to seek the sinners out, he
could not help reading him a little lecture.

"I don't feel as sure as you do that a sin has been committed, but
admitting that a sin has been committed, I think you ought to admit
that you set your face against the pleasure of these poor people too
resolutely."

"Pleasure," said Father Tom. "Drinking and dancing, hugging and kissing
each other about the lanes."

"You said dancing--now, I can see no harm in it."

"There is no harm in dancing, but it leads to harm. If they only went
back with their parents after the dance, but they linger in the lanes."

"It was raining the other night, and I felt sorry, and I said, 'Well,
the boys and girls will have to stop at home to-night, there will be no
courting to-night.' If you do not let them walk about the lanes and
make their own marriages, they marry for money. These walks at eventide
represent all the aspiration that may come into their lives. After they
get married, the work of the world grinds all the poetry out of them."

"Walking under the moon," said Father Tom, "with their arms round each
other's waists, sitting for hours saying stupid things to each
other--that isn't my idea of poetry. The Irish find poetry in other
things except sex."

"Mankind," said Father John, "is the same all the world over. The Irish
are not different from other races; do not think it. Woman represents
all the poetry that the ordinary man