the long drive from Tinnick over here.'

'One should never be praised for doing what is agreeable to one to do. I
liked you from your letters; you're like your letters, Father Oliver--at
least I think you are.'

'I'm certain you're like yours,' Father Oliver returned, 'only I
imagined you to speak slower.'

'A mumbling old man,' Father O'Grady interjected.

'You know I don't mean that,' Father Oliver replied, and there was a
trace of emotion in his voice.

'It was really very good of you to drive over from Tinnick. You say that
you only undertook the journey because it pleased you to do so. If that
philosophy were accepted, there would be no difference between a good
and an evil action; all would be attributed to selfishness.' He was
about to add: 'This visit is a kindness that I did not expect, and one
which I certainly did not deserve;' but to speak these words would
necessitate an apology for the rudeness he felt he was guilty of in his
last letter, and the fact that he knew that Father O'Grady had come to
talk to him about Nora increased his nervousness. But their talk
continued in commonplace and it seemed impossible to lift it out of the
rut. Father O'Grady complimented Father Oliver on his house and Oliver
answered that it was Peter Conway that built it, and while praising its
comfort, he enlarged on the improvements that had been made in the
houses occupied by priests.

'Yes, indeed,' Father O'Grady answered, 'the average Irish priest lived
in my time in a cottage not far removed from those the peasants lived
in. All the same, there was many a fine scholar among them. Virgil,
Horace, Ovid, Catullus, Cicero in the bookcases. Do you ever turn to
these books? Do you like reading Latin?'

And Father Oliver replied that sometimes he took down his Virgil. 'I
look into them all sometimes,' he added.

'And you still read Latin, classical Latin, easily?' Father O'Grady
inquired.

'Fairly,' Father Oliver replied; 'I read without turning to the
dictionary, though I often come to words I have never seen or have
forgotten the meaning of. I read on. The Latin poets are more useful
than the English to me.'

'More useful?' Father O'Grady repeated.

'More useful,' Father Oliver rejoined, 'if your object is a new point of
view, and one wants that sometimes, living alone in the silent country.
One sometimes feels frightened sitting by the fire all alone listening
to the wind. I said just now that I was thinking of yo