little
altar boys--the poor little beggars--they looked so nice yesterday, and
oh to think of it! Good God!"

"Very dramatic, very dramatic," I said, "but not the quiet narrative and
consecutive style that I affect. Now, supposing you told me the story.
There's balm in Gilead yet."

And this was the story, told with much impressiveness, a fair amount of
gesticulation, and one or two little profane expressions, which made the
Recording Angel cough and look away to see how was the weather.

It appears that about seven o'clock Father Letheby had a sick-call
outside the village. There are generally a fair share of sick-calls on
the day succeeding the great festivity, for obvious reasons. He was
returning home through the village, when the sound of singing arrested
his steps just outside Mrs. Haley's public house. His heart gave a
bound of delight as he heard the familiar lines and notes of the
_Adeste_. "Thank God!" he said, "at last, the people are beginning to
bring our Catholic hymns into their own homes." As he listened intently
there was a slight reaction as he recognized the sweet liquid notes,
with all the curls and quavers that are the copyright and strictly legal
and exclusive possession of Jem Deady.

"Good heavens!" said the young priest, in a frenzy of indignation, "has
that ruffian dared to introduce into the taproom our Christmas melodies,
and to degrade them into a public-house chorus?"

He stepped into the shop. There was no one there. He turned softly the
handle of the door, and was in the taproom for several minutes before he
was recognized. What he witnessed was this. Leaning in a tipsy, maudlin
way against the wall were the holly bushes, which, decorated with pink
ribbons, and supposed to conceal in their dim recesses the "wren, the
wren, the king of all birds," had been the great attraction of the
morning. Leaning on the deal table, with glasses and pints of porter
before them, as they sat and lounged or fell in various stages of
intoxication, were the wren-boys; and near the fire, with his back
turned to the door, and his fingers beating time to the music in pools
of dirty porter, was Jem Deady. As Father Letheby entered he was
singing:--

"Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine,
Gestant puellae viscera--"

the most awful and tender lines of the glorious hymn.

He was unconscious of the priest's presence, and quite unconscious of
his horrible sacrilege. Father Letheby continued gazing on the s