shirt-factory on the 20th. I give you
timely warning, Father Dan, for you are to be chairman, and your speech
is to be the event of the occasion."

"Quite an anti-climax from the eternal hills," I said, noticing his
tendency to practical issues rather than to supernatural evolutions;
"but now, let us see. Are you sure of Ormsby?"

"Nearly so. I have left him severely alone--told him the matter
concerned himself altogether. He has given up reading and argumentation
of every kind. He says the _Veni Creator_ every day. But I think, under
Heaven, it is the patience and divine serenity of this poor child that
affect him most deeply."

"Then he isn't shocked at her appearance?"

"Oh, dear, yes! He cannot bear to look at her. He says it is more like
Oriental leprosy than anything he has seen in these countries. But her
gentleness and patience and her realization of the unseen startle him--"

"It has startled me more than once," I replied.

"And me. I begin to feel almost nervous about directing so high a soul.
I am glad you have noticed it, because you can give me lights."

"H'm. You are becoming sarcastic, young man. But I feel we are treading
on holy ground. Let us look to ourselves. How often do you give the
child Holy Communion?"

"Every Sunday and holiday."

"Has she asked for more frequent Communion?"

"Yes, indeed; but I hesitated."

"Hesitate no longer. _Digitus Dei est hic_."

Of course, I had seen all this myself; for in a quiet, unconscious way
this poor child had manifested even to my purblind eyes the dealings of
God's munificence with her. By degrees all the old vain regrets after
her beauty had yielded to perfect resignation; and resignation had grown
into peace, and peace had been transformed into rapture.

"I used be thinking, Daddy Dan, a good deal of what you said to me--how
these poor bodies of ours were but a little lime, and phosphorus, and
water; and that we must all go through the terrible changes of death;
and what you told me of that great saint in Spain and the dead queen;
but it was only when Father Letheby read to me about our Lord, 'a worm
and no man,' 'a leper and accursed by God and afflicted'; 'and one huge
sore from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet'--that I began
to think He had made me like Himself, welcome be His Will, and Holy be
His Name!"

Then I got her a fine big brass Crucifix from the Passionist Fathers at
Mount Argus, and left her to her wonder-working a