"Dud Fielding did stir
the old Nick in me for sure."

"Yes," said Father Mack. "And that same fierce spirit will be stirred
again and again, Dan. Despite all your teachers can do for you, there will
be pricks and goads we can not help."

"I know it," answered Dan, sturdily. "I'm ready for them. Saint Andrew's
is worth all the pricks and goads I'll get. But Aunt Winnie, Father,--I
can't forget Aunt Winnie. I've got to take Aunt Winnie back home."

"Would she--wish it, at such--such a cost, Dan?" Father Mack questioned.

"Cost," repeated Dan, simply. "It wouldn't cost much. The rooms are only a
dollar a week, and Aunt Winnie can make stirabout and Irish stews and
potato cake to beat any cook I know. Three dollars a week would feed us
fine. And there would be a dollar to spare. And she could have her teapot
on the stove again, and Tabby on the hearth-rug, only--only" (the young
face clouded a little) "I'm afraid great as it all would be, she'd be
grieving about her dreams."

"Her dreams!" echoed Father Mack, a little puzzled.

"Yes," said Dan. "You see, I am all she has in the world, and she is awful
soft on me, and since I got into Saint Andrew's she's softer still. She
thinks there's nothing too great or grand for me to do. My, it would make
you laugh, Father, to hear poor old Aunt Winnie's pipe dreams about a
tough chap like me!"

"What does she dream, Dan?" asked the old priest softly.

"I suppose she'd get out of them if she were home where things are natural
like," said Dan; "but now she sits up there in the Little Sisters'
dreaming that I'm going to be a priest,--a rough-and-tumble fellow like
me!"

"Stranger things than that have happened, Dan," said Father Mack, quietly.
"I was a rough-and-tumble fellow myself."

"You, Father!" exclaimed Dan.

"The 'roughest-and-tumblest' kind," said Father Mack, his worn face
brightening into a smile that took away twenty years at least. "I ran away
to sea, Dan, leaving a gentle mother to break her heart for me. When I
came back" (the old face shadowed again) "she was gone. Ah, God's ways are
full of mystery, Dan! I think it was that made me a priest."

Father Mack was silent for a moment. His dim eyes turned to the sunset,
where the cloud curtains were swept asunder, the pillared gates a glory of
crimson and gold. Something in his old friend's face hushed Dan's
questioning until Father Mack spoke again.

"That was a long time ago,--a long time ago. But the thought